Why the Year 2026 Is Set to Be an Unprecedented Year for India's Sun Mission

Regarding Aditya-L1, the year 2026 will be like no other.

It's the first time the spacecraft – which was placed in orbit last year – can watch the Sun during its maximum activity cycle.

According to scientific data, this occurs roughly every 11 years when the Sun's magnetic poles flip – the Earth equivalent would be the North and South poles swapping positions.

It's a time of great turbulence. It sees our star transition from calm to stormy and features a significant rise in the frequency of solar eruptions and massive solar flares – massive bubbles of fire that erupt from the solar corona.

Made up of charged particles, a CME can weigh of billions of tons and reach velocities of up to 3,000km per second. It can head out in any direction, even toward our planet. At top speed, it would take a CME about half a day to cover the vast distance between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or low-activity times, our star emits a few solar eruptions a day," says a leading scientist. "Next year, it's anticipated them to be over ten daily."

Researching CMEs ranks among the key research goals of India's maiden solar mission. Firstly, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to learn about the Sun at the centre of our planetary system, and secondly, since events occurring on the solar surface endanger systems on our planet and in orbit.

Impacts on Our Planet and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections seldom present a direct threat to human life, but they do affect our planet by causing magnetic disturbances affecting conditions in Earth's vicinity, where about 11,000 satellites, including many from India, orbit.

"The most spectacular displays of a CME are auroras, being direct evidence that solar particles from Sun journey toward our planet," the scientist explains.

"But they can also cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft malfunction, knock down power grids and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Past Solar Incidents

• The most powerful solar event in history occurred during the Carrington Event which knocked out communication systems worldwide
• During 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, affecting six million people in darkness for hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disrupted flight operations, causing chaos in Sweden and some other European airports
• Recently in 2022, an ejection caused dozens of spacecraft being lost

If we are able to observe events on the Sun's corona and spot a solar storm or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, record its temperature at the source and watch its trajectory, it can work as a forewarning to switch off electrical systems and satellites and move them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

While other solar missions observing the Sun, Aditya-L1 holds an edge compared to rivals regarding studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument has perfect dimensions enabling it to nearly mimic the Moon, fully covering the Sun's photosphere and allowing it an uninterrupted view of nearly the entire of the corona 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, even during solar events," says the expert.

Essentially, the coronagraph functions as an artificial Moon, blocking the Sun's bright surface to let scientists continuously observe its faint outer corona – a feat the real Moon does only during eclipses.

Additionally, this is the only mission capable of examining solar events in visible light, enabling it to determine a CME's temperature and heat energy – key clues indicating the intensity of an eruption if it headed our direction.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

To prepare for next year's peak solar activity period, researchers worked together to study information obtained from one of the largest CMEs that Aditya-L1 has recorded until now.

This event began in September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight totaled billions of tons – for comparison that struck the ship weighed much less.

At origin, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – relative to the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons each.

Even though these figures make it sound massive, the scientist classifies it as a "medium-sized" one.

The asteroid which wiped out prehistoric life on our planet was 100 million megatons and when solar peak occurs, there may be eruptions carrying power matching even more than that.

"I consider this eruption we evaluated happened when the Sun of typical solar activity. Now this sets the benchmark for future comparison assessing what is in store during solar maximum arrives," he states.

"The learnings gained will assist in work out the countermeasures to be adopted to protect spacecraft in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid achieving a better understanding of near-Earth space," he adds.