ISRO on Saturday launched the country’s ambitious Solar mission, Aditya L1, eyeing history again after its successful lunar expedition, Chandrayan-3, a few days ago.
According to ISRO, Aditya-L1 is the first space-based observatory to study the sun. The spacecraft, after travelling about 1.5 million km from the earth over 125 days, is expected to be placed in a Halo orbit around the Lagrangian point L1, which is considered closest to the sun.
Among others, it will send pictures of the sun for scientific experiments.
According to scientists, there are five Lagrangian points (or parking areas) between the earth and the sun where a small object tends to stay if put there. The Lagrange Points in space can be used by spacecraft to remain there with reduced fuel consumption.
The total time from launch to reaching the L1 point would be about four months for the Aditya-L1 Mission, ISRO said.
Explaining the reasons to study the sun, ISRO said it emits radiation in nearly all wavelengths along with various energetic particles and magnetic fields.
The atmosphere of the earth as well as its magnetic field acts as a protective shield and blocks harmful wavelength radiations. In order to detect such radiation, solar studies are carried out from space.
The Aditya-L1 mission carries seven scientific payloads to carry out the study.
