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In a significant achievement for India’s space exploration endeavors, the country’s solar observation mission successfully entered the Sun’s orbit on Saturday after completing a four-month journey. Launched in September, the Aditya L1 Mission is equipped with various instruments designed to measure and observe the Sun’s outermost layers.
Jitendra Singh, India’s science and technology minister, announced on social media that the probe had reached its ultimate orbit, emphasizing its mission to unravel the mysteries of the Sun-Earth connection.
While the US and the European Space Agency have previously dispatched probes to the solar system’s center, with Nasa’s Pioneer program dating back to the 1960s, Japan and China have also initiated their solar observatory missions within Earth’s orbit. However, the recent mission by the Indian Space Research Organisation marks the first instance of any Asian nation placing a probe in orbit around the Sun.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed the accomplishment, describing it as a testament to the unwavering dedication of Indian scientists. Named after a Hindu Sun deity, Aditya now occupies a position where the gravitational forces from both the Sun and the probe cancel each other out, enabling it to maintain a stable halo orbit around the Sun.
With a reported cost of $48 million, the orbiter is set to investigate coronal mass ejections—a periodic occurrence involving significant discharges of plasma and magnetic energy from the Sun’s atmosphere. These powerful bursts have the potential to reach Earth, posing a threat to satellite operations. The mission also aims to enhance our understanding of various solar phenomena by capturing images and measuring particles in the Sun’s upper atmosphere.