Aditya L1 reaches solar orbit

• India’s solar observation mission, Aditya-L1, has entered the sun’s orbit after a four-month journey.
• ISRO is only the third space agency to station a spacecraft at the L1 after NASA and the European Space Agency.
• The latest mission by ISRO is the first by any country in Asia to be placed in orbit around the sun.
• Aditya, named after a Hindu sun deity, has travelled 932,000 miles (1.5m km) from Earth – still only 1% of the distance between Earth and the sun.
  • Aditya-L1 was launched in 2023 with PSLV C57.
• It is now at a point called Lagrange point L1.
  • These are the points where the gravitational forces of both celestial bodies cancel out, allowing it to remain in a stable halo orbit around the sun. (Lagrange point)
  • There are five Lagrange points.

OBJECTIVES

• It will study coronal mass ejections,
  • CMEs- periodic phenomenon in which huge discharges of plasma and magnetic energy are released from the sun’s atmosphere. These bursts are so powerful they can reach the Earth and disrupt the operations of satellites.
• The mission also aims to shed light on the dynamics of several other solar phenomena like Solar wind distribution and temperature anisotropy etc. by imaging and measuring particles in the sun’s upper atmosphere.
• It is carrying 7 payloads-
  • 4 remote sensing payloads
  • 3 in-situ payloads