Aditya-L1 Has Reached Its Destination. Here Are Some Interesting Facts About The ISRO Sun Mission
L1 is located 1.5 mn kilometres from Earth. It’s a special vantage and strategic location in space, providing Aditya-L1 spacecraft an uninterrupted view of the Sun’s outer atmosphere or corona
At L1, no eclipses or occultations occur. Aditya-L1 will be in an equilibrium state and a stable position, and will simply hover in the halo orbit without spending much fuel
The distance between the Sun and the Earth is about 150 mn km, and that between the Aditya-L1 spacecraft and the Earth is 1.5 mn km.
The strategic location, about 148.5 mn km away, will allow Aditya-L1 to view the Sun without coming in contact with its scorching heat
Launched on September 2, 2023, it took Aditya-L1 127 days to reach its final destination
Aditya-L1 has a mission duration of five years. The spacecraft is equipped with 7 payloads
Aditya-L1 is expected to provide important information about the problem of coronal heating, dynamics of space weather, solar flares, and the propagation of particles and fields in the interplanetary medium
So far, it has conducted scientific experiments such as measuring high-energy particles, capturing its first high-energy X-rays from solar flares, measuring energy variations in protons and alpha particles, and capturing full-disk images of the Sun in near-ultraviolet wavelengths
Aditya-L1's findings may help scientists better understand nuclear fusion reactions that occur inside the Sun, and how they power the star
The temperature of the central region of the Sun, or its core, is about 15 mn degrees Celsius, and that of the photosphere is about 5,500 degrees Celsius. Aditya-L1 will also study the reasons behind this difference in temperature