Chennai: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Thursday said that India’s first solar mission Aditya-L1 spacecraft has taken a selfie and images of the Earth and the Moon.
ISRO has shared the images on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter).
“Onlooker! Aditya-L1, destined for the Sun-Earth L1 point, takes a selfie and images of the Earth and the Moon,” wrote ISRO in the X post.
The Aditya-L1 was launched aboard the PSLV C57 at 11:50 IST on 2 September 2023, ten days after the successful landing of ISRO's moon mission, Chandrayaan 3. It successfully achieved its intended orbit nearly an hour later.
Aditya-L1, India’s space-based solar observatory, is destined for Sun-Earth Lagrange point (L1), located about 1.5 million kilometers away from the Earth and the total travel time from launch to L1 would take about four months.
As the spacecraft travels towards Lagrange Point (L1), it will exit the earth’s gravitational Sphere of Influence (SOI). After the exit from SOI, the cruise phase will start and subsequently, the spacecraft will be injected into a large halo orbit around the L1, the point where the gravitational pull of the Sun and Earth will be equal, and hence the spacecraft will not gravitate towards any one of the planets.
It has been 5 days since its journey began, and for the first time, Aditya-L1 has looked back at Earth and the moon to take a photo. The spacecraft then shared its selfie and other photos of Earth and Moon with the Indian space agency.
With inputs from IANS