Aditya-L1 takes off: India's first solar mission commences journey towards the Sun

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Saturday (September 2) successfully launched Aditya-L1 solar probe from Sriharikota spaceport, Andhra Pradesh. This comes less than ten days after creating history with the first-ever soft landing near the Moon's south pole.

Aditya-L1 is primed to be positioned in a strategic halo orbit around the Sun-Earth Lagrange point L1, located approximately 1.5 million kilometers from Earth. The journey to this Lagrange point is estimated to span about four months.

Ahead of Aditya-L1 launch, ex-ISS commander Chris Hadfield hails India's space power; check details

Watch the Aditya-L1 launch here: 

The distinctive advantage of this orbit lies in its uninterrupted view of the Sun, free from potential disruptions like eclipses, making it ideal for the detailed study of solar activities.

The primary objective at the heart of the Aditya L1 mission is the thorough exploration of solar winds and the Sun's enigmatic atmosphere. Armed with seven state-of-the-art scientific instruments or payloads, this spacecraft is finely tuned to observe the Sun across its multiple layers, encompassing the photosphere, chromosphere, and the outermost region known as the corona.

Explained: How close to the Sun will India's Aditya-L1 get?

This ambitious mission is poised to revolutionize our understanding of a wide array of solar phenomena, spanning from the perplexing processes of coronal heating and mass ejections to the intricacies of pre-flare and flare activities.

Moreover, it holds the promise of delivering invaluable insights into the dynamic realm of space weather and the intricate propagation patterns of particles and fields within the vast interplanetary medium.

This groundbreaking mission marks India's pioneering endeavor to holistically investigate and explore the Sun's atmosphere, its surrounding celestial environment, and all associated facets.