India has launched its first observation mission to the Sun, just days after the country made history by becoming the first to land near the Moon’s south pole.

Aditya-L1 lifted off from the launch pad at Sriharikota on Saturday at 11:50 India time (06:20 GMT).

It will travel 1.5 million km (932,000 miles) from the Earth – 1% of the Earth-Sun distance.

India’s space agency says it will take four months to travel that far.

Congratulations all the #ISRO & entire Team 😊👏

Aditya L1 successfully launch! 🚀😍

1st Solar Mission of #INDIA 🇮🇳🌞🛰️#AdityaL1MissionLaunch #SolarMission #ISRO #isroindia #AdityaL1 #MissionAdityaL1 #INDvsPAK #AsiaCup2023 pic.twitter.com/1mzSs08xpl

— Vivek Shah (@VivekCenation30) September 2, 2023

India’s first space-based mission to study the solar system’s biggest object is named after Surya – the Hindu god of Sun who is also known as Aditya.

And L1 stands for Lagrange point 1 – the exact place between Sun and Earth where the Indian spacecraft is heading.

আজ ২রা সেপ্টেম্বর, ২০২৩ বেলা ১১টা ৫০ মিনিটে অন্ধ্রপ্রদেশের শ্রীহরিকোটা থেকে সফল উৎক্ষেপণ করা হলো 𝐀𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐲𝐚 𝐋𝟏(আদিত্য এল ১)-কে।🇮🇳🚀❤☀️#𝐈𝐒𝐑𝐎🛰 #𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐲𝐚𝐥𝟏𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 🚀#𝐀𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐲𝐚𝐋𝟏 #𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐲𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐤𝐚𝐫 #𝐈𝐒𝐑𝐎 #𝐢𝐬𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧🇮🇳 pic.twitter.com/TmyJ6EpSye

— Amar kowner (@AmarKowner) September 2, 2023

According to the European Space Agency, a Lagrange point is a spot where the gravitational forces of two large objects – such as the Sun and the Earth – cancel each other out, allowing a spacecraft to « hover ».

Once Aditya-L1 reaches this « parking spot », it would be able to orbit the Sun at the same rate as the Earth. This also means the satellite will require very little fuel to operate.

Launches made by ISRO in 2023:
1. SSLV-D2/EOS-07 Mission.
2. LVM3-M3/OneWeb India-2 Mission.
3. PSLV-C55/TeLEOS-2 Mission.
4. GSLV-F12/NVS-01 Mission.
5. LVM3-M4/Chandrayaan-3 Mission.
6. PSLV-C56/DS-SAR Mission.
7. PSLV-C57/Aditya-L1 Mission.#ISRO #ISROMissions #ISRO_ADITYA_L1 pic.twitter.com/u5KJtWTP33

— Subhashis Das (Shann) (@das_shann) September 2, 2023

On Saturday morning, a few thousand people gathered in the viewing gallery set up by the Indian Space Research Agency (Isro) near the launch site to watch the blast off.

It was also broadcast live on national TV where commentators described it as a « magnificent » launch. Isro scientists said the launch had been successful and its « performance is normal ».

#AdityaL1 #ISRO pic.twitter.com/Kw170SUD7P

— CharanRaj (@thecharanraj) September 2, 2023

After an hour and four minutes of flight-time, Isro declared it « mission successful ».

« Now it will continue on its journey – it’s a very long journey of 135 days, let’s wish it [the] best of luck, » Isro chief Sreedhara Panicker Somanath said.

Project director Nigar Shaji said once Aditya-L1 reaches its destination, it will benefit not only India, but the global scientific community.

#AdityaL1Launch #AdityaL1#AdityaL1MissionLaunch #ISRO#AdityaL1 #MonzaGP #oafchttps://t.co/xVDteVt4hf

— NextPMRahul24 (@NextPMRaGA) September 2, 2023

Aditya-L1 will now travel several times around the Earth before being launched towards L1.

From this vantage position, it will be able to watch the Sun constantly – even when it is hidden during an eclipse – and carry out scientific studies.

Isro has not said how much the mission would cost, but reports in the Indian press put it at 3.78bn rupees ($46m; £36m).

Isro says the orbiter carries seven scientific instruments that will observe and study the solar corona (the outermost layer); the photosphere (the Sun’s surface or the part we see from the Earth) and the chromosphere (a thin layer of plasma that lies between the photosphere and the corona).

The studies will help scientists understand solar activity, such as solar wind and solar flares, and their effect on Earth and near-space weather in real time.

Former Isro scientist Mylswamy Annadurai says the Sun constantly influences the Earth’s weather through radiation, heat and flow of particles and magnetic fields. At the same time, he says, it also impacts the space weather.

« Space weather plays a role in how effectively the satellites function. Solar winds or storms can affect the electronics on satellites, even knock down power grids. But there are gaps in our knowledge of space weather, » Mr Annadurai told the BBC.

India has more than 50 satellites in space and they provide many crucial services to the country, including communication links, data on weather, and help predict pest infestations, droughts and impending disasters. According to the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), approximately 10,290 satellites remain in the Earth’s orbit, with nearly 7,800 of them currently operational.

Aditya will help us better understand, and even give us a forewarning, about the star on which our lives depend, Mr Annadurai says.

« Knowing the activities of the Sun such as solar wind or a solar eruption a couple of days ahead will help us move our satellites out of harm’s way. This will help increase the longevity of our satellites in space. »

The mission, he adds, will above all help improve our scientific understanding of the Sun – the 4.5 billion-year-old star that holds our solar system together.

India’s solar mission comes just days after the country successfully landed the world’s first-ever probe near the lunar south pole.

With that, India also became only the fourth country in the world to achieve a soft landing on the Moon, after the US, the former Soviet Union and China.

If Aditya-L1 is successful, India will join the select group of countries that are already studying the Sun.

Japan was the first to launch a mission in 1981 to study solar flares and the US space agency Nasa and European Space Agency (ESA) have been watching the Sun since the 1990s.

In February 2020, Nasa and ESA jointly launched a Solar Orbiter that is studying the Sun from close quarters and gathering data that, scientists say, will help understand what drives its dynamic behaviour.

And in 2021, Nasa’s newest spacecraft Parker Solar Probe made history by becoming the first to fly through corona, the outer atmosphere of the Sun.

World Opinions + BBC News

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Rescue teams across nine provinces in the Philippines raced to try to locate 26 people missing after weekend rains, floods and landslides that have killed at least 25 people, in one of its deadliest weather events this year.

The national disaster agency on Wednesday said casualties reported so far had increased to 25 from 17 the previous day, with most deaths caused by drowning from flash floods.

“Search and rescue operations continue, led by the coast guard as most of them were missing fishermen,” the disaster agency’s Diego Agustin Mariano told DZMM radio.

The rain-induced floods and landslides are unlike previous disasters in the Philippines, which are typically triggered by more severe typhoons and tropical storms, of which the archipelago usually sees about 20 each year.

Rain-induced floods and landslides unlike previous disasters in the country, which are typically triggered by severe typhoons

The agency also recorded more than 300 flooded areas and 20 rain-induced landslides, which collectively have forced more than 80,000 people to take shelter in evacuation centres. Most of the floods have since subsided.

Local media showed images on Wednesday of people crammed in gymnasiums turned into evacuation centres and residents removing debris and cleaning up homes after days of heavy rains.

The state weather agency said occasional light to moderate rains would continue in central and southern areas until Thursday.

World Opinions – theguardian.com

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A battering winter storm has left 1.7 million homes and businesses without power across the United States, as millions of people worry how the prospect of further outages will affect holiday and travel plans.

More than 200 million people were under weather warnings on Saturday, as wind chills sent temperatures down as low as minus 48 Celsius (minus 55 Fahrenheit), according to the National Weather Service (NWS).

The blinding blizzards, freezing rain and frigid cold that enveloped much of the country knocked out power from Maine to Seattle, while a major electricity grid operator warned the 65 million people it serves across the eastern US that rolling blackouts might be required.

Across the country, officials have attributed at least a dozen deaths to exposure, car crashes on icy and snow-covered roads and other effects of the storm, including two people who died in their homes outside Buffalo, New York, when emergency crews could not reach them amid historic blizzard conditions.

More than 200 million people under weather warnings as thousands of flights cancelled and at least a dozen dead.

The storm that arrived earlier in the week downed power lines, littered highways with piles of cars in deadly accidents and led to more than 1,000 flights already cancelled so far on Saturday, according to flight tracking website FlightAware.

On Friday, the number of cancelled flights hit nearly 5,700 and Thursday had already seen 2,700 cancellations.

Heavy snow and howling winds have taken hold of much of the nation, including normally temperate southern states.

The storm was nearly unprecedented in its scope, stretching from the Great Lakes near Canada to the Rio Grande along the border with Mexico.

Freezing rain coated much of the Pacific Northwest in a layer of ice, while people in the Northeast faced the threat of coastal and inland flooding.

Highways in the Midwest faced lengthy delays due to snowy weather or crashes and authorities in parts of Indiana, Michigan, New York and Ohio urged motorists to avoid nonessential travel.

Passenger railroad Amtrak has cancelled dozens of trains through Christmas, disrupting holiday travel for thousands.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) imposed ground stops or delays for de-icing at a number of US airports because of winter weather.

‘Enormous strain’

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told the CNN media network that the US aviation system “is operating under enormous strain” with two different storms and high winds affecting airports around the country. About 10 percent of US flights were cancelled on Thursday, Buttigieg said.

Another 10,400 US flights were delayed on Friday – including more than 40 percent of those operated by American Airlines, United Airlines, Delta Air Lines and Southwest Airlines – in addition to the 11,300 flights that were delayed on Thursday.

Southwest cancelled 1,238 flights on Friday, 29 percent of all its scheduled flights, while Alaska Airlines cancelled 507, or 64 percent, of its flights.

Seattle-Tacoma International Airport had 357 flights, or 63 percent of departures, cancelled on Friday. The FAA lifted a ground stop there, in place due to snow and ice, but late on Friday, delays were still averaging nearly three hours.

Nearly half of departing flights at Detroit Metro were cancelled, along with 70 percent at Portland, 38 percent at New York’s LaGuardia, 29 percent at Chicago O’Hare and 27 percent at Boston.

World Opinions – Agencies

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