🔗 Share this article

Regarding India's first solar observatory, the year 2026 will be like no other.

It's the first time the spacecraft – which was placed into space last year – will be able to watch the Sun during its maximum activity cycle.

According to research, this occurs approximately once every 11 years when the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent would be the planet's poles changing places.

It's a time marked by intense activity. It sees the Sun changing from peaceful to violent and features a significant rise in the frequency of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of plasma that blow out from the solar corona.

Made up of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass of billions of tons and reach velocities exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can travel toward various directions, including towards our planet. At top speed, it would take an ejection 15 hours to traverse the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or low-activity times, our star launches two to three CMEs a day," says an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, we expect them to be over ten each day."

Studying coronal mass ejections is one of the key scientific objectives of India's maiden solar mission. One, because the ejections provide an opportunity to study the star in the center of our solar system, and two, because activities occurring on the solar surface threaten systems on Earth and in space.

Effects on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections seldom present a direct threat to human life, but they do affect our planet through generating magnetic disturbances affecting conditions in near space, where about 11,000 satellites, including many from India, orbit.

"The most beautiful manifestations of a CME include northern lights, being a clear example that solar particles from our star are travelling toward our planet," the scientist explains.

"But they can also cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft malfunction, disable power grids and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The most powerful solar storm in history was the Carrington Event that disabled communication systems worldwide
• In 1989, sections of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, affecting six million people without power for hours
• During late 2015, solar storms disrupted air traffic control, causing chaos in Sweden and some other European air hubs
• In February 2022, a CME caused dozens of spacecraft failing

If we are able to observe events on the Sun's corona and detect solar activity or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, record its temperature at origin and watch its path, this serves as advanced warning to shut down electrical systems and spacecraft and move them to safety.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

There are other space observatories watching our star, Aditya-L1 holds an edge compared to rivals regarding watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph has perfect dimensions enabling it to effectively simulate the Moon, completely blocking the solar disk permitting an uninterrupted view of almost all solar atmosphere around the clock, throughout the year, including during eclipses and occultations," notes the researcher.

In other words, this instrument functions as a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the solar glare allowing researchers constantly study the dim solar atmosphere – a feat natural eclipses does only during eclipses.

Additionally, it's unique that can study eruptions in visible light, enabling it to determine a CME's temperature and thermal output – key clues that show how strong a CME would be when traveling our direction.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

In preparation for the upcoming solar maximum, researchers collaborated analyzing information obtained from a major solar eruption that Aditya-L1 has observed recently.

It originated on 13 September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight totaled billions of tons – the iceberg that sank Titanic was 1.5 million tonnes.

At origin, its temperature reached extreme levels and the energy content comparable to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – relative to nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons in scale respectively.

Even though these figures seem incredibly large, the expert describes it as a moderate event.

The asteroid which wiped out prehistoric life on our planet carried enormous energy and during solar peak occurs, there may be CMEs carrying power matching even more than that.

"I consider the CME we evaluated to have occurred when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. This establishes the standard that we'll be using to evaluate what is in store during solar maximum occurs," he states.

"The learnings gained will help us work out protective measures to be adopted safeguarding spacecraft in orbit. They will also help achieving deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he concludes.