What will Aditya- L1 mission achieve? Solar cycle to solar storms, know ISRO's objectives

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ISRO is all prepared to launch the Aditya-L1 mission tomorrow and it has successfully conducted the launch rehearsals too.

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Through the Aditya-L1 mission, our scientists are expecting to get new information about the past, present, and future of the Sun. This data which will be collected by Aditya-L1, is believed to be important to understand the possible climatic changes on Earth.

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According to Prof Dipankar Banerjee, Director of Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES) in Nainital, "Aditya-L1 will go up to the First Lagrangian point, about 1.5 million km from the Earth, and transmit the data, much of which will be received by the scientific community for the first time from a platform in space". 

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“If the Sun can be monitored over a long period from the Lagrangian point, it is expected to model the history of the Sun that is hitherto unknown to mankind,” PTI quoted Banerjee as saying.

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He further said, “It has been seen that every 11 years, there is a change in the magnetic activity in the Sun, which is known as the solar cycle. There are also occasional violent changes in the magnetic field in the solar atmosphere resulting in huge bursts of energy which are called solar storms”. 

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According to Banerjee, “The outer solar atmosphere, the corona, is structured by strong magnetic fields, which confines the hot plasma. At certain times it releases into the interplanetary medium bubbles of gas and magnetic fields called coronal mass ejections”.

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“When they travel in the interplanetary medium, they can go in all directions. Satellites are directly affected by the impact of the coronal mass ejections (CME). Other planetary bodies, including the Moon, also get affected by solar storms. To protect our assets in space, prediction of space weather is required. The predictions can be improved with the help of data from Aditya-L1,” he said.

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It will happen for the first time that, Aditya-L1 will attempt to get an estimate of the magnetic field in the corona from a space platform. 

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“Besides, continuous monitoring of near ultraviolet flux from the Sun, certain properties of the solar wind (expansion of the Sun’s outer atmosphere that emits particles) and some other issues will be done for the first time,” according to Banerjee.

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Along with the Payloads of Aditya L1, ground-based telescopes will also be used from the vantage point of Lagrange 1 point, and observations will be from ARIES, Kodaikanal, and Udaipur observatories.  As per Banerjee, their observations will be crucial for a better understanding of the phenomenon.

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"Once the scientific payloads (inside Aditya-L1) start operations, we will be looking for data after the verification phase is over. A team will be involved with the scientific data analysis," Banerjee said.