Before India, which country sent how many spaceships to the Sun and what was discovered?

Before India, which country sent how many spaceships to the Sun and what was discovered?

After the success of Chandrayaan-3, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) launched the Aditya L-1 mission to study the Sun only on Saturday. According to ISRO, Aditya L-1 is the first Indian space-based mission to study the Sun.

The spacecraft has been sent into a halo orbit around the Langrez Point 1 (L-1) of the Sun-Earth system. Which is about 1.5 million kilometers away from the earth. The spacecraft is carrying seven payloads, which will study the photosphere, chromosphere and outermost layer of the Sun.

So far, only the American space agency NASA, the European Space Agency and the German Aerospace Center have sent separate and joint space missions to study the Sun. NASA has sent three main missions - SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory), Parker Solar Probe and IRIS (Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph).

Apart from this, NASA has also launched several other solar missions. Which includes S, Wind, Hinode, Solar Dynamics Observatory and Stereo. The Soho mission was jointly launched by NASA and the European Space Agency.

The Parker Solar Probe has been making its closest approach to the Sun's surface for four years. IRIS (Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph) is taking high resolution (high quality) pictures of the surface of the Sun.

Today we are discussing some special missions to the Sun and their achievements.

 

1. Parker Solar Probe, NASA

NASA announced on December 14, 2021 that the Parker Solar Probe passed through the Sun's upper atmosphere, known as the corona. He took samples of charged particles there and collected information about the Sun's magnetic field.

NASA has been claiming that this is the first time that a spacecraft has 'touched' the Sun for the first time. The Parker Solar Probe is designed to fly within 6.5 million kilometers of the Sun's surface to study energy flow and the solar wind.

Also, studying about the solar corona by getting so close is one of its main objectives. Its purpose is to find answers to the central question of heliophysics: how the Sun controls the solar system in the constantly changing space environment.

According to NASA, the Parker Solar Probe was launched into space in 2018 and succeeded in its mission just three years later. According to NASA, this spacecraft made its eighth flyby on April 28, 2021, that is, it flew closest to the Sun.

Also during that time it entered the corona (solar halo). From the details gathered by this mission, it is known that the wide horizontal shapes in the solar wind, which are called witchboxes, are not the exception but the norm.

For decades, scientists believed that such wide horizontal shapes are limited to the polar regions of the Sun. But this new information raised a new question that where do they come from?

"It is very exciting that our state-of-the-art technology has been able to take the Parker Solar Probe so close to the Sun and return it," said Joseph Smith, Parker Program Executive at NASA Headquarters.

"Now we are waiting to know when it will get closer to the Sun and how it will be born." Scientists believe the new data will help scientists study the part of the Sun, which is responsible for the corona's extreme heat and which blasts the solar wind at supersonic speeds.

Through this type of study, the harsh climate of space can be understood and predicted. From which there will be a suspicion that telecommunications and satellites will also be affected on Earth.

 

2. Solar Orbiter, European Space Agency

The Solar Orbiter was built by the European Space Agency with the help of NASA. Its purpose is also to study heliophysics closely. It is said that this spacecraft, which was released into space on February 9, 2020, is likely to work for seven years.

The Solar Orbiter made a video of its closest approach to the Sun (one-third the distance between the Sun and Earth) on March 30, 2022, which was also released by the European Space Agency. According to the space agency, it was taken from the south pole of the sun.

This spacecraft is flying normally at a distance of a quarter of the distance between the Sun and the Earth. According to the space agency, these images were taken from the Sun's south pole with the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) at a wavelength of 17 nanometers.

The European Space Agency has said that many scientific mysteries may be hidden in the poles of the Sun. The magnetic field that is generated from the sun and produces a very powerful field but for a short time, they tend to be included in the poles of the sun.

This creates a closed magnetic field, due to which energy particles cannot escape. But it emits very powerful ultraviolet rays, which the EUI is specially designed to record.

In 2025, the Solar Orbiter will tilt slightly in its orbit using the gravity of Venus so that the spacecraft's instruments can study the Sun's poles. This spacecraft It is made to withstand extreme heat.

Through this, the innermost part of the sun can be studied so that better information can be obtained about it and even estimates can be made about the things that make life on earth possible. The European Space Agency says this is the first satellite to take close-up pictures of the Sun's polar regions.

The solar orbiter and the process of storm formation will also be closely studied. Some important facts related to the Sun: According to the information given on the NASA website, the Sun is a bright star containing hydrogen and helium at the center of our solar system, which is about four and a half billion years old.

It is at a distance of about 150 million kilometers from the earth. It is the largest star in our solar system. The volume of the sun is 1.3 lakhs as big as the earth and its gravity keeps the entire solar system in its orbit.

It can also be said that the Sun's gravity plays an important role in keeping a small part of a spaceship's remnants around it in an orbit in space.

The maximum temperature in the Sun is at its core, where the temperature is 1.5 million degrees Celsius. Very powerful charged particles flow into space from the sun, which affect the nature of space in the entire solar system.

Light from the sun takes eight minutes to reach the earth, which is 150 million kilometers away. The surface of the sun is not solid like the surface of the earth and it is a ball of condensed gas of hydrogen and helium.

So its speed is different in different places. The sun is made up of a gas of extremely hot and charged particles called plasma. It takes 25 Earth days for this plasma to make a dent on the Sun's equator.

While it takes 36 Earth days at the Pole. On the upper surface of the sun is the photosphere, above that is the chromosphere and the corona. In this, huge explosions occur from nuclear fusion and the particles containing its energy reach the earth.

There are several rings of dust around the sun, which are called solar dust rings. From which it is estimated that when the solar system was formed 4.6 billion years ago. At that time, there is a disk of gas around the sun.

Nuclear fusion explosions in the Sun throw the gas outwards. This is the power by which the sun is concentrated in one point.