Syllabus :GS 3/Space
In News
- Aditya-L1 has made a significant discovery by capturing the first-ever image of a solar flare ‘kernel’ in the lower solar atmosphere (photosphere and chromosphere).
Aditya-L1
- It was launched in September 2023, by ISRO’s PSLV C-57 rocket.
- It was placed in a halo orbit around the Earth-Sun Lagrange Point (L1) in January 2024.
- It is India’s first dedicated space-based solar mission.
- It stays approximately 1.5 million km away from Earth, directed towards the Sun, which is about 1% of the Earth-Sun distance.
- It would study the outer atmosphere of the Sun.
- It will neither land on the Sun nor approach the Sun any closer.
| Do you know? – “Aditya” means the Sun in Sanskrit, and “L1” refers to Lagrange Point 1 in the Sun-Earth system. – L1 is a location in space where the gravitational forces of the Sun and Earth are in equilibrium, allowing objects placed there to remain stable relative to both celestial bodies. – The L1 point allows the spacecraft to continuously observe solar activities without any eclipse or occultation. |
Scientific payloads
- The Solar Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (SUIT): It captures high-resolution images in 11 different NUV bands, enabling the study of multiple solar layers.
- Solar Low Energy X-ray Spectrometer (SoLEXS), and High Energy L1 Orbiting X-ray Spectrometer (HEL1OS) monitor solar X-ray emissions to detect flare activity.
Importance
- A significant revelation is the correlation between localized brightening in the lower atmosphere and an increase in plasma temperature in the solar corona, validating long-standing theories about solar flare physics.
| A solar flare – It is a sudden, intense burst of energy from the Sun’s atmosphere, caused by the dynamic nature of the Sun’s magnetic field. – When the magnetic field snaps, it releases a powerful burst of energy in the form of light, radiation, and high-energy charged particles. |
Source :TH
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