Landmark For India's Sun Mission, Satellite Starts Studying Solar Winds

The space agency also shared an image that illustrates the energy variations in proton and alpha particle counts captured by the new payload.

Aditya L1, India's ambitious mission to study the sun, today made a giant leap and has now started observing solar winds. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), sharing the development said that the Aditya Solar wind Particle Experiment (ASPEX) payload onboard the satellite has commenced its operations and is performing normally. Aditya-L1 Mission:The Solar Wind Ion Spectrometer (SWIS), the second instrument in the Aditya Solar wind Particle Experiment (ASPEX) payload is operational.The histogram illustrates the energy variations in proton and alpha particle counts captured by SWIS over 2-days.… pic.twitter.com/I5BRBgeYY5

The ASPEX comprises two instruments - the Solar wind Ion Spectrometer (SWIS) and STEPS (SupraThermal and Energetic Particle Spectrometer). While STEPS had kicked into action on September 10, the SWIS instrument was activated on Saturday and has exhibited optimal performance, ISRO said.

The space agency also shared an image on X (formerly Twitter) that illustrates the energy variations in proton and alpha particle counts captured by the new payload.