ISRO's Aditya-L1 vs NASA's Parker Solar Probe: 2 extraordinary Sun missions
India has sent its first spacecraft to study the Sun. This exciting mission, called Aditya-L1, took off from Sriharikota on a Saturday at 11:50 AM India time (06:20 AM GMT). It's going to travel really far – 1.5 million kilometers (932,000 miles) from Earth. That's only 1% of the distance between Earth and the Sun. It will take four months for Aditya-L1 to reach that far.
US space agency NASA too has its solar spacecraft near the Sun. The Parker Solar Probe has been on a mission to get very close to the Sun since 2018 and stay there in those hellish conditions. This Parker Probe is designed to get closer to the Sun's surface than any other spacecraft before it. It's facing extreme heat and radiation to learn more about the Sun's outer atmosphere, solar wind, and high-energy particles. With special tools and a tough shield, the Parker Solar Probe is givingus new insights into the Sun's behavior, space weather, and how it affects Earth.
1. Proximity to the Sun:Aditya L1 will stay quite far away from the Sun. It is about 1.5 million kilometers away from the Earth. But NASA's Parker Solar Probe is getting up close and personal, going to within 3.9 million miles of the Sun's scorching surface. It's even closer to the Sun's outer atmosphere, known as the corona, which is hotter than the Sun's surface.
VELC (Visible Emission Line Coronagraph): Takes pictures and measures the solar corona's temperature, speed, and density.
SUIT (Solar Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope): Provides detailed images of the photosphere and chromosphere, helping us learn about these important layers of the Sun.
SoLEXS (Solar Low Energy X-ray Spectrometer): Observes soft X-rays to understand what's happening on the Sun's surface.
HEL1OS (High Energy L1 Orbiting
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