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For India's first solar observatory, 2026 will be like no other.

This marks the initial occasion the observatory – that entered into space last year – will be able to watch our star when it reaches its maximum activity cycle.

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

This period of great turbulence. It sees our star transition from calm to stormy and is marked by a significant rise 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 can weigh up to a trillion kilograms and can attain velocities exceeding 2,000 miles each second. It can travel toward various directions, including towards the Earth. At top speed, the journey takes a CME about half a day to traverse the 150 million km between Earth and the Sun.

"During typical or quiet periods, our star emits two to three CMEs a day," says an astrophysics expert. "In 2026, we expect them to be 10 or more each day."

Studying CMEs is one of the key scientific objectives of India's maiden solar mission. One, because the ejections offer a chance to learn about the star at the centre of our planetary system, and two, since events that take place on the Sun endanger infrastructure on Earth and in orbit.

Effects on Earth and Orbital Systems

CMEs rarely pose a direct threat to people, but they do affect life on Earth through generating geomagnetic storms that impact the weather in near space, where nearly 11,000 satellites, including many from India, are stationed.

"The most beautiful manifestations of a CME include northern lights, which are direct evidence that charged particles from Sun are travelling toward our planet," the expert clarifies.

"But they can also make all the electronics aboard spacecraft malfunction, knock down electrical networks and affect weather and communication satellites."

Historical Solar Incidents

• The most powerful solar event in history occurred during the Carrington Event which knocked out communication systems worldwide
• During 1989, sections of Quebec's power grid was knocked out, leaving millions without power for nine hours
• During late 2015, solar activity disrupted air traffic control, leading to chaos across Scandinavia and some other European air hubs
• In February 2022, a CME caused 38 commercial satellites failing

With capability to see what happens on the Sun's corona and spot solar activity or a coronal mass ejection in real time, measure its heat at origin and watch its trajectory, it can work as a forewarning to switch off electrical systems and satellites redirecting them out of harm's way.

Aditya-L1's Special Capability

While other space observatories watching the Sun, Aditya-L1 holds an edge over others when it comes to studying the solar atmosphere.

"The instrument is the exact size enabling it to effectively simulate lunar coverage, fully covering the solar disk and allowing it an uninterrupted view of almost all solar atmosphere 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, including during solar events," notes the researcher.

Essentially, the coronagraph functions as a synthetic eclipse, blocking the Sun's bright surface to let researchers constantly study the dim solar atmosphere – a feat natural eclipses provide only during eclipses.

Moreover, it's unique that can study solar events in visible light, letting it measure eruption heat and heat energy – key clues indicating how strong of an eruption when traveling our direction.

Readiness for Maximum Activity

In preparation for the upcoming peak solar activity period, scientists worked together analyzing information gathered from one of the largest solar eruption that Aditya-L1 has recorded until now.

This event began in September 2024 at 00:30 GMT. Its mass was 270 million tonnes – for comparison that sank Titanic 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 – in comparison the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much smaller and 21 kilotons each.

Even though these figures seem massive, the expert classifies it as a moderate event.

The space rock which wiped out the dinosaurs on Earth was 100 million megatons and during solar peak occurs, we could see CMEs carrying power matching even more than that.

"I consider the CME we analyzed happened when the Sun of typical solar activity. Now this sets the benchmark that we'll be using assessing what is in store during solar maximum arrives," he says.

"The learnings from this will assist in work out the countermeasures to implement to protect satellites in orbit. Additionally, they'll aid achieving a better understanding of our space environment," he adds.