New Delhi:
India’s “Heavenly Surya Namaskar” is about to reach its climax. India’s first space-based solar observatory, the Aditya-L1 satellite, is scheduled to check in on a home it may occupy for the next five years. According to the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), the satellite is scheduled to reach its destination orbit at 4 pm on January 6.
The 126-day journey, which began on September 2 last year, covered some 3.7 million kilometers in detours to reach ‘Kalambhoomi’, or the ‘land of action’. ISRO says Aditya is in good health, is transmitting beautiful images of the entire solar disc, and scientific results have already started flowing in.
Aditya’s home is located in a halo-like orbit about 1.5 million kilometers from Earth. Although it is closer to the Sun than Earth, the Sun is about 150 million kilometers from us, so its orbit will still be much further away.
The 1,475-kilogram Aditya-L1 satellite will conduct scientific experiments from its last vantage point, called Lagrangian Point 1, to better understand the solar system’s still-mysterious stars.
“India’s solar observatory will be able to observe the sun continuously and uninterrupted, which will help in understanding space weather. It will act like a platform for solar storm prediction and warning.” said Nigar Shaji, Solar Observatory Aditya-L1 Satellite Project Director. UR Rao Satellite Center in Bangalore.
Solar storms are massive magnetic eruptions of the Sun that can affect the entire solar system.
“Aditya-L1 will continuously observe the Sun, which will alert us to the impending impact of the Sun’s electromagnetic waves on the Earth and prevent disruptions to satellites and other power and communication networks. “Continue in safe mode until the solar storm passes,” ISRO Chairman S. Somanath told NDTV, adding that India needs to protect itself from the effects of the sun. It added that it has assets worth more than Rs 50,000 crore in space, including more than 50,000 operational satellites.
“The Aditya-L1 satellite will act as a kind of space-based protection device to monitor solar flares and subsequent solar storms,” he explained.
If a large solar flare leaves the sun, it can cause the satellite’s electronics to malfunction. To protect them, space engineers shut down electronic equipment and keep it in a safe shutdown until the highly charged storm passes.
Ashoka University astrophysicist Professor Somak Raychoudhury said, “Aditya-L1 is an intelligent satellite. It never sleeps, it monitors the activity of the nearest star to Earth with a hawk’s eye, and it knows when the sun’s wrath will strike. “It will alert us to the impact it may have on us.”
Professor Durgesh Tripathi, a scientist at Pune’s Inter-University Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), said the “complex space telescope” is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for scientists.
Aditya-L1 Scientific Suite
ISRO said in a statement that the key scientific objectives of the Aditya-L1 mission are:
- Studying the dynamics of the solar upper atmosphere (chromosphere and corona)
- We study heating of the chromosphere and corona, the physics of partially ionized plasmas, the onset of coronal mass ejection, and flares.
- Observe in-situ particle and plasma environments and provide data for studies of particle dynamics from the Sun.
- Studying the physics of the solar corona and its heating mechanisms
- Corona and coronal loop plasma diagnostics: temperature, velocity, density
- Occurrence, dynamics, and origin of CME (coronal mass ejection)
- Identify a series of processes occurring in multiple layers (chromosphere, basal corona, and extended corona) that ultimately lead to solar eruption events
- Magnetic field topology and magnetic field measurements in the solar corona
- Origin, composition, and dynamics of the solar wind, the driving force behind space weather