ISRO's Aditya-L1 spacecraft captures majestic pictures of sunspots
ISRO Aditya-L1
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Friday (Dec 8) shared the first-ever full disk images of the Sun in near ultraviolet wavelengths, captured by the Aditya-L1 spacecraft, launched earlier this year.
ISRO informed the pictures were clicked by theSolar Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (SUIT) instrument aboard the Aditya -L1 spacecraft. The pictures were taken using 11 different filters in wavelengths ranging from 200 to 400 nm.
Among the notable features revealed are sunspots, plage, and quiet Sun regions. Notably, sunspots are dark in appearance because they are relatively cooler than other parts of the sun (they are still extremely hot at around 6,500 F).
The sunspots are able to emit powerfulcoronal mass ejections (CMEs) that can slam into Earth and trigger potentially dangerous geomagnetic storms, regardless of whether we can see the dark patches.
Notably,SUIT is one of seven payloads onboard Aditya-L1 and has been developed by a team of 50 scientists, researchers and students at theInter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) in Pune.
Aditya-L1 mission
India’s maiden sun mission was launched on September 2 from the second launch pad of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) in Sriharikota.
Aditya-L1 is equipped with seven scientific payloads developed indigenously by the ISRO and various national research laboratories. Apart from IUCAA, the researchers atthe Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) have also contributed to developing the payloads.
Watch |India sun mission Aditya-L1 begins collecting data from distance of 50,000 kms
These payloads are designed to study the photosphere, chromosphere, and the outermost layers of the Sun, known as the corona, using electromagnetic, particle, and magnetic field detectors.
Notably, Aditya-L1 will arrive at the advantageous L1 point in January 2024 and the satellite will spend its mission life orbiting around L1 in an irregularly shaped orbit. L1 is about 1.5 million km from the earth.The L1 point was discovered by mathematician Joseph Louis Lagrange.
(With inputs from agencies)