🔗 Share this article

Regarding India's first solar observatory, 2026 is expected to be like no other.

This marks the initial occasion the spacecraft – that entered into space recently – can watch our star when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

As per research, 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 of great turbulence. It sees the Sun changing from peaceful to violent and features a huge increase in the frequency of solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – enormous clouds of fire that blow out from the solar corona.

Composed of charged particles, a CME may have a mass up to a trillion kilograms and reach a speed exceeding 2,000 miles per second. It can head out in any direction, including towards the Earth. At top speed, it would take an ejection about half a day to traverse the 150 million km Earth-Sun distance.

"In the normal or quiet periods, the Sun emits a few solar eruptions daily," says an astrophysics expert. "Next year, we expect them to be over ten each day."

Researching CMEs is one of the key scientific objectives of India's first solar observatory. One, as these eruptions provide an opportunity to learn about the star at the centre of our planetary system, and secondly, since events occurring on the Sun threaten infrastructure on Earth and in orbit.

Impacts on Our Planet and Orbital Systems

Coronal mass ejections rarely pose immediate danger to people, yet they impact our planet through generating geomagnetic storms that impact the weather in Earth's vicinity, where about thousands of spacecraft, comprising Indian satellites, orbit.

"The most spectacular manifestations from solar eruptions include northern lights, which are direct evidence that solar particles from Sun journey toward our planet," the expert explains.

"However, they may make all the electronics aboard spacecraft fail, knock down power grids and disrupt weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The strongest solar storm ever recorded was the Carrington Event that disabled communication systems worldwide
• During 1989, a part of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, leaving six million people without power for hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disturbed flight operations, leading to disruption across Scandinavia and some other European airports
• Recently in 2022, a CME had led to dozens of spacecraft being lost

If we are able to see events in the solar atmosphere and detect solar activity or a coronal mass ejection in real time, record its temperature at origin and watch its trajectory, this serves as advanced warning to switch off power grids and satellites and move them out of harm's way.

The Mission's Special Capability

While other space observatories watching our star, India's spacecraft has an advantage compared to rivals regarding watching the corona.

"The instrument is the exact size that lets it nearly mimic the Moon, completely blocking the solar disk permitting continuous observation of almost all of the corona around the clock, throughout the year, even during eclipses and occultations," says the researcher.

In other words, the coronagraph acts like an artificial Moon, blocking the solar glare to let scientists continuously observe its faint outer corona – a feat the real Moon provide only during eclipses.

Moreover, it's unique that can study eruptions using optical wavelengths, letting it determine a CME's temperature and heat energy – key clues that show the intensity a CME would be when traveling our direction.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

To prepare for the upcoming solar maximum, researchers worked together analyzing information obtained from a major CMEs recorded by the mission has recorded until now.

It originated in September 2024 during early hours. Its mass 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 was equivalent to 2.2 million megatons of explosives – relative to the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller in scale each.

Although the numbers make it sound incredibly large, the scientist describes it as a moderate event.

The asteroid which wiped out the dinosaurs on Earth carried enormous energy and during the Sun's maximum activity cycle, we could see CMEs with energy content matching even more than that.

"I consider the CME we analyzed happened when the Sun was in the normal activity phase. This establishes the standard for future comparison to evaluate what to expect during solar maximum occurs," he states.

"The learnings gained will help us developing protective measures to implement safeguarding satellites in orbit. They will also help us gain a better understanding of near-Earth space," he adds.