🔗 Share this article The Reason 2026 Will Be an Unprecedented Year for the Indian Solar Observation Mission A massive solar eruption is much bigger than Earth For Aditya-L1, the year 2026 will be like no other. It's the first time the observatory – which was placed into space recently – will be able to observe the Sun during its maximum activity cycle. As per research, this occurs roughly once every 11 years as the Sun's magnetic poles flip – the Earth equivalent would be the North and South poles swapping positions. This period marked by intense activity. It sees the Sun transition from peaceful to violent and features a significant rise in the frequency of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of plasma that blow out of the Sun's outermost layer. Composed of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and reach a speed of up to 3,000km per second. It can head out in any direction, including towards the Earth. At top speed, the journey takes an ejection about half a day to traverse the vast distance between Earth and the Sun. "During typical or quiet periods, our star launches two to three CMEs daily," explains an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, it's anticipated them to be over ten each day." Researching CMEs is one of the most important research goals for the Indian first solar observatory. Firstly, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to study the star at the centre of our planetary system, and two, since events occurring on the solar surface endanger systems on Earth and in space. Northern lights illuminated the night sky across America in November Effects on Our Planet and Orbital Systems CMEs seldom present immediate danger to people, yet they impact life on Earth by causing geomagnetic storms affecting the weather in Earth's vicinity, where nearly 11,000 satellites, comprising many from India, orbit. "The most beautiful displays from solar eruptions are auroras, which are a clear example that solar particles from our star journey to Earth," the expert clarifies. "However, they may cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft malfunction, knock down power grids and disrupt meteorological and telecom spacecraft." Past Solar Events The most powerful solar event ever recorded was the Carrington Event which knocked out communication systems worldwide In 1989, a part of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, leaving millions without power for nine hours In November 2015, solar storms disturbed flight operations, causing disruption in Sweden and various European air hubs In February 2022, a CME caused dozens of spacecraft being lost With capability to see events in the solar atmosphere and spot solar activity or a coronal mass ejection as it happens, record its temperature at origin and track its trajectory, it can work as advanced warning to switch off power grids and satellites redirecting them to safety. The Sun's corona can be seen when the Moon blocks the Sun from our perspective Aditya-L1's Special Capability While other solar missions watching the Sun, India's spacecraft holds an edge compared to rivals regarding watching the corona. "Aditya-L1's coronagraph is the exact size enabling it to nearly mimic lunar coverage, completely blocking the solar disk and allowing it an uninterrupted view of almost all of the corona around the clock, 365 days a year, even during solar events," says the researcher. In other words, this instrument functions as a synthetic eclipse, blocking the Sun's bright surface allowing scientists continuously observe the dim solar atmosphere – a feat the real Moon does only during eclipses. Moreover, this is the only mission that can study eruptions in visible light, enabling it to determine eruption heat and thermal output – crucial data that show how strong of an eruption when traveling our direction. Preparation for Maximum Activity In preparation for next year's solar maximum, researchers collaborated analyzing the data gathered from a major CMEs recorded by the mission has recorded until now. This event began in September 2024 during early hours. The eruption's weight was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes. At origin, the heat was 1.8 million degrees Celsius and the energy content comparable to millions of tons of TNT – relative to the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller in scale respectively. Although these figures make it sound incredibly large, the expert describes it as a "medium-sized" one. The asteroid that eliminated the dinosaurs on our planet carried enormous energy and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see eruptions with energy content equal to even more than that. "I consider the CME we evaluated to have occurred when the Sun of typical solar activity. Now this sets the standard that we'll be using to evaluate what is in store when the maximum activity cycle arrives," he says. "The insights from this will help us work out the countermeasures to implement safeguarding spacecraft in near space. They will also help us gain a better understanding of our space environment," he adds.