🔗 Share this article Why 2026 Will Be a Year Like No Other for India's Solar Observation Mission A coronal mass ejection is several times larger than our planet Regarding Aditya-L1, 2026 is expected to be like no other. It's the first time the spacecraft – that entered in orbit recently – can watch the Sun when it reaches its maximum activity cycle. According to research, it comes roughly once every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent could be the North and South poles changing places. This period of great turbulence. It involves our star changing from calm to stormy and features a huge increase in the number of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of fire that erupt of the Sun's outermost layer. Composed of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass of billions of tons and can attain a speed exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can head out in any direction, including towards the Earth. At maximum velocity, it would take an ejection 15 hours to cover the vast distance between Earth and the Sun. "During typical or low-activity times, our star emits two to three CMEs a day," explains an astrophysics expert. "Next year, it's anticipated there will be over ten daily." Studying CMEs is one of the key scientific objectives for the Indian first solar observatory. Firstly, because the ejections offer a chance to study the star at the centre of our planetary system, and two, because activities occurring on the solar surface endanger systems on Earth and in space. Northern lights illuminated the night sky over the US in November Impacts on Our Planet and Orbital Systems Coronal mass ejections seldom present a direct threat to human life, but they do affect life on Earth by causing geomagnetic storms affecting the weather in Earth's vicinity, where about thousands of spacecraft, including Indian satellites, orbit. "The most spectacular manifestations from solar eruptions are auroras, which are direct evidence that solar particles from our star are travelling toward our planet," the expert explains. "But they can also cause electronic systems on a satellite fail, disable electrical networks and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft." Historical Solar Incidents The most powerful solar event ever recorded was the Carrington Event that disabled telegraph lines across the globe During 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, affecting six million people without power for hours During late 2015, solar activity disturbed flight operations, causing chaos in Sweden and some other European air hubs In February 2022, an ejection had led to 38 commercial satellites being lost If we are able to observe what happens in the solar atmosphere and detect a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection in real time, measure its heat at the source and watch its trajectory, this serves as advanced warning to switch off power grids and spacecraft and move them out of harm's way. The solar atmosphere can be seen when the Moon blocks the Sun from our perspective The Mission's Unique Advantage While other solar missions observing the Sun, Aditya-L1 holds an edge compared to rivals when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere. "The instrument is the exact size that lets it effectively simulate the Moon, fully covering the solar disk and allowing it continuous observation of nearly the entire of the corona 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, including during solar events," says the researcher. Essentially, the coronagraph functions as a synthetic eclipse, blocking the Sun's bright surface allowing researchers continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – a feat natural eclipses provide only during eclipses. Additionally, this is the only mission capable of examining solar events using optical wavelengths, enabling it to determine a CME's temperature and heat energy – crucial data indicating how strong of an eruption if it headed our direction. Preparation for Peak Period To prepare for the upcoming peak solar activity period, scientists worked together analyzing information gathered from a major CMEs that Aditya-L1 has observed recently. This event began in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that struck the ship weighed much less. Initially, its temperature reached extreme levels with energy equivalent comparable to millions of tons of TNT – in comparison the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller in scale each. Even though the numbers make it sound incredibly large, the scientist describes it as a moderate event. The space rock that eliminated the dinosaurs on Earth carried enormous energy and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see eruptions carrying power matching even more than that. "I consider the CME we analyzed happened when the Sun of typical solar activity. Now this sets the benchmark for future comparison assessing what is in store during solar maximum occurs," he says. "The insights from this will assist in developing the countermeasures to implement safeguarding spacecraft in orbit. They will also help us gain a better understanding of near-Earth space," he concludes.