- Following the successful launch of Chandrayaan-2, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is now focussing on launching the Aditya L-1 mission.
- The Aditya L-1 mission is a satellite designed to study the sun. It will be India’s first satellite to do so.
- The mission is aimed at studying the Sun from a halo orbit around the Sun-Earth Lagrangian point 1, henceforth the name Aditya-L1
- The Aditya L-1 mission will study the Sun’s corona -the outer layer.
- The major objectives of the mission are: a) Realization and launch of a satellite in a Halo orbit around L1, b) Understanding solar upper atmospheric (chromosphere and corona) dynamics, c) Study of chromospheric and coronal heating and d) Observe the in-situ particle and plasma environment to provide data for the study of particle dynamics from the Sun.
- Lagrangian points are the positions in the orbits of two large celestial bodies, where the smaller object or satellite will be affected by the combined gravitational pull of the two large bodies (e.g. the Sun and the Earth).
- There are 5 such points out of which, only at L1, the gravitational attraction of one of the larger bodies is cancelled by the other.
