India's Aditya-L1 solar probe takes an epic selfie with Earth and moon (photos, video)

Elizabeth Howell
·2 min read
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image of half full earth from space beside a picture of the moon taken at a distance, labeled with the word "moon"
image of half full earth from space beside a picture of the moon taken at a distance, labeled with the word "moon"

India's first-ever solar probe just beamed some striking imagery home to Earth.

Aditya-L1, the new mission from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), snapped a photo of itself in space, as well as shots of Earth and the moon. ISRO combined the footage into a video, which the agency  shared on X  (formerly Twitter) on Thursday (Sept. 7).

Related: India launches Aditya-L1, its 1st-ever sun probe

image of half full earth from space beside a picture of the moon taken at a distance, labeled with the word
image of half full earth from space beside a picture of the moon taken at a distance, labeled with the word

The Indian Space Research Organisation Aditya-1 sun spacecraft took a selfie of Earth, visible here in this photo. (Image credit: ISRO)

Aditya-L1 launched on Sept. 2. It's performing checkouts in low Earth orbit right now before heading toward its long-term destination to study the sun. ("Aditya" translates to "sun" in Sanskrit.)

In about four months, the probe will arrive at Earth-sun Lagrange Point 1 (L1), a gravitationally stable spot about 1 million miles (1.5 million kilometers) from our planet in the direction of the sun.

"A satellite placed in the halo orbit around the L1 point has the major advantage of continuously viewing the sun without any occultation/eclipses," ISRO officials wrote in an Aditya-L1 mission description. "This will provide a greater advantage of observing the solar activities and its effect on space weather in real time."

a golden spacecraft visible in space with some of the instruments labeled in text
a golden spacecraft visible in space with some of the instruments labeled in text

The Indian Space Research Organisation's Aditya-1 spacecraft's selfie in space. (Image credit: ISRO)

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Aditya-L1 will study the sun to learn about a few things: solar activity, such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections of charged particles that can spark beautiful auroras on Earth while causing a risk to infrastructure like satellites.

Additionally, it will examine the "coronal heating problem." That  refers to the sun's mysteriously ultra-hot outer atmosphere, which reaches temperatures around 2 million degrees Fahrenheit (1.1 million degrees Celsius), according to NASA. Other layers of the sun are not nearly so hot, presenting a mystery for scientists as to how this happens.

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