🔗 Share this article The Reason the Year 2026 Is Set to Be a Year Like No Other for India's Sun Mission A coronal mass ejection can be much bigger than Earth For Aditya-L1, the year 2026 is expected to be like no other. It's the first time the observatory – that entered into space recently – will be able to watch the Sun when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle. According to scientific data, it comes approximately every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – a similar Earth scenario would be the North and South poles swapping positions. It's a time marked by intense activity. It sees the Sun transition from calm to stormy and features a significant rise 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 CME may have a mass of billions of tons and reach velocities exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can travel toward various directions, including towards the Earth. At top speed, it would take a CME 15 hours to cover the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun. "In the normal or low-activity times, our star launches a few solar eruptions a day," says an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, we expect there will be over ten daily." Researching CMEs ranks among the most important research goals for the Indian first solar observatory. One, as these eruptions offer a chance to learn about the star at the centre of our solar system, and secondly, since events occurring on the Sun endanger infrastructure on our planet and in orbit. Northern lights lit up the darkness across America in November Impacts on Our Planet and Orbital Systems Coronal mass ejections seldom present immediate danger to people, yet they impact our planet by causing magnetic disturbances affecting conditions in Earth's vicinity, where nearly 11,000 satellites, comprising Indian satellites, are stationed. "The most beautiful displays from solar eruptions are auroras, which are direct evidence that solar particles from Sun journey to Earth," the expert clarifies. "However, they may cause electronic systems on a satellite malfunction, disable power grids and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft." Past Solar Events The most powerful solar event in history occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm that disabled communication systems worldwide During 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, affecting six million people without power for nine hours During late 2015, solar activity disrupted air traffic control, leading to chaos in Sweden and some other European airports Recently in 2022, a CME had led to dozens of spacecraft failing If we are able to see what happens on the Sun's corona and spot solar activity or solar eruption as it happens, record its temperature at the source and watch its trajectory, this serves as advanced warning to shut down electrical systems and spacecraft and move them out of harm's way. The solar atmosphere is only visible when the Moon blocks the Sun from Earth The Mission's Special Capability There are other solar missions watching the Sun, Aditya-L1 holds an edge compared to rivals regarding studying the solar atmosphere. "The instrument has perfect dimensions enabling it to effectively simulate lunar coverage, completely blocking the solar disk permitting an uninterrupted view of almost all of the corona 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, including during solar events," notes the expert. Essentially, this instrument functions as a synthetic eclipse, obscuring the Sun's bright surface allowing researchers continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – something natural eclipses does only during specific moments. Additionally, this is the only mission capable of examining eruptions in visible light, enabling it to determine eruption heat and heat energy – crucial data that show the intensity a CME would be when traveling our direction. Preparation for Peak Period To prepare for the upcoming peak solar activity period, researchers worked together to study information gathered from one of the largest CMEs recorded by the mission has recorded until now. This event began in September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight totaled billions of tons – for comparison that sank Titanic weighed much less. Initially, its temperature was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – relative to nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons and 21 kilotons each. Although these figures seem incredibly large, the expert classifies it as a "medium-sized" one. The space rock which wiped out prehistoric life on our planet was 100 million megatons and during solar peak occurs, there may be CMEs with energy content equal to greater levels. "In my view the CME we analyzed to have occurred when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. This establishes the standard for future comparison assessing what to expect when the maximum activity cycle occurs," he says. "The learnings from this will help us developing the countermeasures to implement safeguarding spacecraft in orbit. They will also help us gain a better understanding of near-Earth space," he adds.