The Reason 2026 Is Set to Be an Unprecedented Year for India's Solar Observation Mission

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

It's the first time the observatory – that entered in orbit last year – will be able to watch our star when it reaches the peak of its solar cycle.

As per scientific data, it comes roughly every 11 years as the Sun's polarity reverses – the Earth equivalent would be the North and South poles swapping positions.

It's a time marked by intense activity. It involves the Sun transition from calm to stormy and features a huge increase in the frequency of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – massive bubbles of fire that blow out from the solar corona.

Composed of ionized particles, a coronal mass ejection may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and can attain a speed of up to 3,000km each second. It can head out toward various directions, including towards our planet. At maximum velocity, it would take an ejection about half a day to cover the vast distance Earth-Sun distance.

"During typical or quiet periods, our star launches two to three CMEs a day," says an astrophysics expert. "Next year, we expect them to be over ten daily."

Studying CMEs is one of the most important research goals of India's maiden solar mission. One, because the ejections offer a chance to study the Sun at the centre of our planetary system, and two, because activities occurring on the solar surface threaten infrastructure on our planet and in space.

Effects on Earth and Space Infrastructure

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose immediate danger to human life, but they do affect our planet by causing geomagnetic storms affecting conditions in Earth's vicinity, where about thousands of spacecraft, comprising Indian satellites, orbit.

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

"But they can also cause electronic systems aboard spacecraft malfunction, knock down electrical networks and affect meteorological and telecom spacecraft."

Historical Solar Events

• The most powerful solar storm in history occurred during the 1859 solar superstorm which knocked out communication systems worldwide
• During 1989, sections of Canadian electrical network was knocked out, affecting millions without power for hours
• In November 2015, solar storms disturbed flight operations, causing disruption across Scandinavia and some other European air hubs
• In February 2022, an ejection caused dozens of spacecraft being lost

If we are able to see what happens in the solar atmosphere and detect a solar storm or solar eruption as it happens, record its temperature at origin and watch its path, this serves as a forewarning to switch off power grids and spacecraft and move them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Unique Advantage

While other space observatories watching the Sun, India's spacecraft holds an edge over others regarding watching the corona.

"The instrument is the exact size enabling it to nearly mimic lunar coverage, completely blocking the Sun's photosphere permitting an uninterrupted view of almost all of the corona around the clock, throughout the year, including during eclipses and occultations," notes the expert.

Essentially, this instrument acts like an artificial Moon, blocking the solar glare to let scientists constantly study its faint outer corona – something the real Moon provide only during specific moments.

Moreover, 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 that show the intensity a CME would be if it headed our direction.

Preparation for Maximum Activity

To prepare for the upcoming peak solar activity period, scientists collaborated analyzing the data gathered from one of the largest CMEs recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

It originated in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – the iceberg that struck the ship was 1.5 million tonnes.

Initially, the heat reached extreme levels and the energy content comparable to 2.2 million megatons of TNT – relative to the atomic bombs used in Japan were 15 kilotons in scale respectively.

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

The space rock that eliminated prehistoric life on Earth was 100 million megatons and when the Sun's maximum activity cycle, there may be CMEs 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 to evaluate what to expect during solar maximum occurs," he states.

"The insights from this will help us developing protective measures to implement to protect satellites in near space. They will also help us gain deeper knowledge of near-Earth space," he adds.