Why in News?
Aditya L1’s VELC payload, in collaboration with IIA and NASA, has recorded the first-ever spectroscopic observations of a coronal mass ejection (CME) in the visible wavelength range, enabling scientists to measure CME parameters extremely close to the Sun’s surface.
Description:
- Primary payload of Aditya L1 (India’s 1st Sun mission placed at Sun–Earth L1 point ~1.5 million km from Earth).
- Developed by Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), CREST Campus, Hosakote, Karnataka.
- It is internally occulted solar coronagraph with capability of:
- imaging
- spectroscopy
- spectro-polarimetry
- VELC consists of coronagraph + spectrograph + polarimetry module + detectors + auxiliary optics.
Purpose / Science role
- To study solar corona (outermost layer of Sun’s atmosphere).
- Can image corona up to 1.05 Solar Radius – closest imaging done by any payload so far.
- Analyses:
- coronal temperature
- plasma density
- plasma velocity
- Monitors & characterises:
- Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs)
- Solar wind
What is a Coronagraph?
- Specialised instrument that blocks Sun’s bright disk so corona becomes visible.
- Invented by French astronomer Bernard Lyot (1930s).
- Corona is normally visible only during solar eclipses → coronagraph artificially creates this eclipse-like blocking effect using an occulting mask.
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