Exploring the Sun: What to Know About ISRO’s Latest Mission
ISRO, the Indian Space Research Organization, has achieved the remarkable feat of safely landing on the moon within a limited budget. The successful Chandrayaan-3 mission has garnered global attention, showcasing ISRO’s impressive capabilities. This proud moment for India has paved the way for another significant space endeavor, the Aditya L1 mission, which aims to extensively study the Sun. Let’s delve into the details of ISRO’s upcoming mission.
About Aditya L1 Assignment
According to an ISRO report, Aditya L1 is India’s first space-based observatory-class solar mission to study the Sun. The spacecraft will come with 7 payloads that will study various phenomena of the Sun. The spacecraft studies the Sun from a halo orbit around Lagrange point 1 (L1) of the Sun-Earth system. This position gives the spacecraft the best possible access to view the Sun without interference from a solar eclipse.
Seven payloads will study the sun’s photosphere, chromosphere and outermost layers using electromagnetic and particle detectors. The mission provides a variety of information about Coronal Mass ejection, solar flare activity, space weather, and more.
Aditya L1 Task Objectives
ISRO reports that the mission’s uniqueness and objectives include a deep understanding of the heating of the Sun’s chromosphere and corona, the physics of partially ionized plasma, the formation of coronal mass ejections and flares. It also explores the scientific reasons behind the solar corona and its heating mechanism. Explore the Sun’s outer layer by collecting data on its temperature, speed and density. The task investigates the causes of the formation and composition of the solar wind and space weather.
The mission is unique in that it studies the CME dynamics of the Sun by observing the solar disk. This provides information on how CMEs and solar flares form.
Why study the sun?
There are several reasons surrounding the question. One of them is how the sun’s activity affects interplanetary space and Earth’s atmosphere. However, our magnetic field and atmosphere protect us from the sun’s wrath, which also does not give scientists the means to study its radiation. Therefore, the only way to understand more about the sun is to travel into space and gather a deep understanding of our nearest star.
