The Indian Space Agency launched a rocket today, Saturday, to study the sun in its first mission of this kind following the successful landing of India on the moon's surface with the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft. The live broadcast on the Indian Space Research Organisation's website showed the rocket's launch, leaving behind smoke and fire as scientists applauded. Nearly 500,000 viewers followed the broadcast, while thousands gathered in a viewing hall near the launch site to watch the probe's launch.
The probe aims to study solar winds, which can cause disturbances on Earth often manifested as auroras. The probe is named Aditya-L1, derived from a Hindi word meaning "sun." This solar mission comes after India surpassed Russia at the end of last month to become the first country to land at the moon's south pole. While Russia had a more powerful spacecraft, India's Chandrayaan-3 surpassed the Russian Luna-25 and achieved a successful landing.
The Aditya-L1 spacecraft is designed to cover a distance of about 1.5 million kilometers over four months, reaching a point in space resembling a parking lot where objects tend to remain in place due to gravitational balance, which reduces the spacecraft's fuel consumption. Scientists from the Indian Space Research Organisation stated that the data obtained from the mission could long-term aid in better understanding the sun's impact on Earth's climate patterns and the origin of solar winds, a stream of particles flowing from the sun throughout the solar system.
