With the moon safely under its belt, India has now set sights on our solar system’s lone star.
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00:00We are travelling 1.5 million km over 4 months to cover 1% of the distance between the earth
00:23and the sun.
00:24Acero's new mission could help understand future climate changes on earth and, believe
00:28it or not, help track power cuts.
00:32First of its kind for India, the Aditya-L1 mission will study the sun from Lagrange Point
00:371, L1.
00:39But what are we hoping to find there?
00:42Now, this does get a little technical and Acero has tweeted a detailed list of what
00:46Aditya-L1's seven payloads are.
00:49But in simple terms, the craft will observe solar activities and what effects they have
00:54on space weather.
00:55It will study the sun's outermost layers, known as the photosphere and the chromosphere.
01:00And it will also study the local environment at L1, among other things.
01:04So, since we can't yet land a craft on the sun, why not study the star from earth itself?
01:11Well, the sun not only emits light and radiation of almost all wavelengths, but also energy
01:17particles and magnetic fields.
01:19The earth's atmosphere and its own magnetic field do a great job of blocking out many
01:25of these radiations, particles and fields.
01:28Since these never reach the surface of the earth, we can't really study them from here.
01:33So, why not land a spacecraft just outside the earth's atmosphere and not 1.5 million
01:39kilometers away?
01:40There are two reasons for this.
01:42The first is that the craft will have to be far enough away from our planet so that the
01:46earth's magnetic field doesn't influence its readings.
01:49And the second is fuel.
01:51That's where the Lagrange points come in.
01:54These are points in space where if you send an object there, it will tend to stay put
01:58without using much fuel.
02:00The gravitational pull of two large masses, in this case the earth and the sun, becomes
02:05equal to the force needed for our spacecraft to move with them.
02:10There are five such points named L1 through L5.
02:13L1 is where Aditya is headed.
02:15It is the only Lagrange point between the earth and the sun, but it covers only about
02:201% of the distance between the two bodies.
02:22It will have a clear and uninterrupted view of the sun so that it can continuously observe
02:28the solar activities.
02:29L2, which is behind the earth away from the sun, is where NASA's James Webb Space Telescope
02:35lives.
02:36You might have seen some of these photographs taken by it.
02:39L3 has little use for humans so far since it's tucked away behind the sun.
02:44While this might be the first solar probe for India, several other countries have already
02:49sent missions to study the sun.
02:51These include several missions by the US, countries in Europe, Japan and even China.