🔗 Share this article

Regarding India's first solar observatory, the year 2026 will be truly unique.

It's the first time the observatory – which was placed into space recently – can watch our star when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

As per research, this occurs approximately once every 11 years when the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario would be the North and South poles changing places.

This period marked by intense activity. It sees the Sun transition from calm to stormy and is marked by a huge increase in the frequency of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of plasma that blow out from the solar corona.

Composed of charged particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass of billions of tons and reach velocities of up to 3,000km per second. It can head out toward various directions, including towards the Earth. At maximum velocity, it would take a CME 15 hours to traverse the vast distance Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or quiet periods, the Sun launches a few solar eruptions a day," explains an astrophysics expert. "Next year, we expect there will be over ten daily."

Studying coronal mass ejections ranks among the key research goals for the Indian maiden solar mission. One, because the ejections provide an opportunity to study the star in the center of our planetary system, and secondly, because activities occurring on the Sun endanger systems on our planet and in orbit.

Effects on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

CMEs seldom present a direct threat to human life, but they do affect life on Earth by causing geomagnetic storms that impact conditions in Earth's vicinity, where nearly 11,000 satellites, comprising many from India, orbit.

"The most spectacular displays from solar eruptions include northern lights, which are a clear example that solar particles from Sun are travelling to Earth," the scientist explains.

"But they can also cause electronic systems on a satellite fail, knock down electrical networks and disrupt weather and communication satellites."

Past Solar Incidents

• The most powerful solar storm in history was the Carrington Event that disabled communication systems worldwide
• During 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, affecting millions in darkness for nine hours
• In November 2015, solar activity disrupted air traffic control, causing chaos across Scandinavia and various European air hubs
• In February 2022, a CME caused dozens of spacecraft being lost

With capability to see what happens in the solar atmosphere and detect solar activity or a coronal mass ejection in real time, measure its heat at the source and watch its trajectory, this serves as advanced warning to shut down power grids and spacecraft redirecting them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Unique Advantage

There are other solar missions observing the Sun, Aditya-L1 holds an edge compared to rivals regarding watching the corona.

"Aditya-L1's coronagraph is the exact size that lets it effectively simulate lunar coverage, completely blocking the solar disk permitting an uninterrupted view of almost all of the corona around the clock, 365 days a year, including during solar events," says the expert.

In other words, the coronagraph functions as a synthetic eclipse, blocking the Sun's bright surface to let scientists continuously observe its faint outer corona – something the real Moon provide only during eclipses.

Additionally, this is the only mission that can study eruptions in visible light, letting it measure eruption heat and heat energy – crucial data that show the intensity of an eruption if it headed our direction.

Readiness for Peak Period

In preparation for the upcoming peak solar activity period, researchers worked together to study the data gathered from one of the largest solar eruption recorded by the mission has observed recently.

This event began in September 2024 during early hours. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that struck the ship weighed much less.

Initially, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius with energy equivalent was equivalent to millions of tons of TNT – relative to the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller in scale respectively.

Although the numbers 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 the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be eruptions carrying power equal to greater levels.

"In my view this eruption we evaluated to have occurred during periods of typical solar activity. This establishes the standard that we'll be using assessing what to expect when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he states.

"The learnings gained will help us work out the countermeasures to be adopted safeguarding spacecraft in near space. Additionally, they'll aid achieving a better understanding of near-Earth space," he concludes.