Aditya-L1: India's new mission to study the Sun
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| ESA groundstations helping Aditya on its way to L1. Credit: ESA |
India just launched their new Sun observatory: Aditya L1. The name fittingly means Sun in sankrit, with L1 refering to the final location of the observatory. Aditya will travel to Lagrange point 1, on the "Sun facing" side of Earth's orbit. This is opposite of the more famous L2 point were telescopes like James Webb and Gaia observe deep space. L2 is good for observatories focused on looking into deep space, while L1 is good for observatories focused on the Sun.
Aditya is equipped with a variety of instruments, including:
Visible Emission Line Coronagraph (VELC): This is Aditya's main instrument, and will focus on Coronal Mass Ejections (big bursts of energy from the Sun's surface). To detect these bursts of energy, the instrument will block out the Sun so it can see the corona surounding it.
Solar Ultra-Violet Imaging Telescope (SUIT): As the name suggests, SUIT will image the photosphere ("surface") and chromosphere ("atmosphere") of the Sun in the Ultra-Violet.
Solar Wind Ion Spectrometer (SWIS): SWIS is one part of the Aditya Solar wind Particle EXperiment (ASPEX). Its job is to identify particles coming from the Sun, and measure their energy distribution.
Supra Thermal Energetic Particle Spectrometer (STEPS): The other part of ASPEX, STEPS will sample the solar wind, and look for higher energy particles.
Plasma Analyzer Package for Aditya (PAPA): This science package will analyze electron distribution in the solar wind, and in interplanetary space.
Solar Low Energy X-ray Spectrometer (SoLEX): SoLEX will measure the temperature of the Sun's corona, thermal structure, and elemental composition.
High Energy L1 Orbiting X-ray Spectrometer (HEL1OS): This instrument will focus on the mechanism behind solar flares, and will compliment observations by other instruments.
Magnetometer: While the magnetometer doesn't get a cool acronym, it's still an important instrument on any science spacecraft. This instrument consists of two sensors on the end of a 6 meter boom, and will map the interplanetary magnetic field of the Sun.
Aditya is currently in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), and won't start science observations until it reaches Lagrange point 1. It will take the spacecraft around a month to get there. Once there, Aditya will have to do a stabilization burn around once a month. The L1 point is unstable, like trying to balance a marble on a dome, so the spacecraft will have to constantly keep itself from falling out of the L1 point.
The Target
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| Image of the Sun from the Solar Dynamic Observatory. Credit: NASA/SDO/AIA |
- Designation: Sun (Sol)
- Type: G2 V (Main-Sequence Yellow Dwarf)
- Temperature: 5772 Kelvin (At the "Surface" or Photosphere)
- Magnitude: -26.83
- Mass: 1.989x10^30 Kilograms
- Radius: 695,508 Kilometres
- Density: 1.41 g/cm^3
- Orbit: ~230 Million Years (Around the Galactic Centre)
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