🔗 Share this article The Reason the Year 2026 Will Be an Unprecedented Year for India's Solar Observation Mission A massive solar eruption is much bigger than our planet For India's first solar observatory, 2026 will be like no other. This marks the initial occasion the observatory – that entered into space recently – will be able to watch the Sun when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle. As per scientific data, it comes approximately once every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent would be the planet's poles swapping positions. This period of great turbulence. It involves our star changing from calm to stormy and features a significant rise in the number of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – enormous clouds of fire that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer. Composed of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass of billions of tons and can attain velocities exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can travel in any direction, even toward our planet. At maximum velocity, the journey takes a CME 15 hours to cover the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance. "During typical or quiet periods, our star launches two to three CMEs a day," explains an astrophysics expert. "Next year, we expect there will be 10 or more each day." Researching CMEs is one of the most important research goals for the Indian maiden solar mission. One, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to learn about the Sun in the center of our planetary system, and two, because activities occurring on the Sun endanger systems on our planet and in orbit. Northern lights lit up the darkness across America last autumn Effects on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure Coronal mass ejections rarely pose immediate danger to people, but they do affect our planet through generating geomagnetic storms affecting the weather in near space, where nearly thousands of spacecraft, including Indian satellites, orbit. "The most spectacular displays of a CME are auroras, being a clear example that charged particles from Sun journey to Earth," the scientist clarifies. "However, they may cause electronic systems on a satellite fail, disable power grids and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft." Past Solar Events The strongest solar event in history occurred during the Carrington Event that disabled communication systems across the globe During 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, affecting millions without power for hours During late 2015, solar storms disrupted air traffic control, leading to disruption in Sweden and various European air hubs Recently in 2022, a CME had led to dozens of spacecraft being lost With capability to see events on the Sun's corona and spot solar activity or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, measure its heat at the source and watch its path, this serves as a forewarning to switch off electrical systems and spacecraft and move them out of harm's way. The Sun's corona can be seen when the Moon blocks the Sun from Earth Aditya-L1's Special Capability There are other solar missions observing the Sun, India's spacecraft has an advantage compared to rivals when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere. "Aditya-L1's coronagraph is the exact size enabling it to effectively simulate the Moon, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere and allowing it continuous observation of almost all of the corona 24 hours a day, throughout the year, even during eclipses and occultations," notes the expert. Essentially, the coronagraph acts like an artificial Moon, obscuring the solar glare to let scientists continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – a feat the real Moon provide only during eclipses. Moreover, this is the only mission capable of examining solar events in visible light, letting it measure eruption heat and heat energy – key clues indicating the intensity of an eruption if it headed toward Earth. Readiness for Peak Period In preparation for the upcoming peak solar activity period, scientists collaborated to study the data gathered from a major solar eruption recorded by the mission has observed recently. It originated on 13 September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that struck the ship weighed much less. Initially, the heat reached extreme levels and the energy content was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – relative to nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons each. Even though these figures make it sound incredibly large, the expert describes it as a moderate event. The asteroid which wiped out prehistoric life on Earth was 100 million megatons and when the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see eruptions carrying power equal to even more than that. "I consider the CME we evaluated to have occurred during periods was in the normal activity phase. Now this sets the benchmark for future comparison to evaluate what is in store during solar maximum arrives," he states. "The insights gained will assist in work out protective measures to implement to protect satellites in orbit. They will also help achieving a better understanding of near-Earth space," he adds.