PUNE, India: As Aditya-L1, India’s first spacecraft designed to study the Sun, prepares for launch this Saturday, a group of scientists at Pune’s Inter-University Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics is nervously awaiting the culmination of a decade of work. Durgesh Tripathi and AN Ramaprakash worked for about a decade to develop the Solar Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (SUIT), one of the main payloads of the Aditya-L1 mission.
“It’s not a relief until we know the data we’re getting through SUIT is good and meets the highest quality standards we’ve set for ourselves. These are anxious times for us and for the many talented and dedicated people we have worked with over the past many years. One thing is certain. The new science that SUIT will bring will be amazing,” 52-year-old Ramaprakash told an Indian daily.
SUIT is designed to image the solar photosphere and chromosphere, two of the Sun’s four outer layers, in the ultraviolet region. The photosphere is the innermost of the outer layers and the last to be directly visible. Temperatures in this area range between 3700 and 6200 degrees Celsius. The chromosphere is the area just above the photosphere and the temperature here range between 3,700 and 7,700 degrees Celsius.
