Aditya mission continuously sending data about Sun: Isro chief

NEW DELHI: Isro's chief, S Somnath, revealed on Sunday that the Aditya L1 solar mission of the premier space research agency continues to relay data about the Sun. Somnath, addressing reporters after receiving a special award from jewellery major P C Chandra Group, highlighted that numerous instruments aboard the spacecraft are actively capturing data on various aspects.
"We are looking into the sun in a continuous manner - UV magnetic charges observation, corona graph observation, X-ray observation and other things," he said.
India's inaugural solar mission craft, the Aditya-L1 spacecraft, embarked on its journey on September 2, 2023.
"As we are keeping this satellite for five years, the observation will be analysed as a long-term measure. It is not like your instant news that something has been reported about the sun today, something else will happen tomorrow, things will happen every day," he explained.
While responding to inquiries regarding the mission's insights into solar eclipses, Somnath elucidated, "eclipse happens as the sun is blocked by the moon. It is not like that anything happens within the sun during an eclipse. But obviously, our mission is also collecting data about the sun before, during and after an eclipse."
Discussing collaborations with other space agencies, he mentioned Isro's involvement in the joint satellite project Nisar (Nasa-Isro Synthetic Aperture Radar), a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) observatory, that will map the entire globe in 12 days and provide spatially and temporally consistent data for understanding changes in Earth’s ecosystems.