Newsnomics AJAY ANGELINA reporter |

India’s first solar space observatory, High Energy L1 Orbiting X-ray Spectrometer (HEL1OS) payload, onboard Aditya-L1 has captured the first glimpse of solar flares.

HEL1OS, “the payload recorded the impulsive phase of solar flares is consistent with the X-ray light curves provided by NOAA’s GOES [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites]” said ISRO, the Indian Space Research Organization.

HEL1OS — developed by the space astronomy group of Isro’s UR. Rao Satellite Centre (URSC) in Bengaluru carried out the observation during its first observation period from approximately 12am to 10pm UT, on October 29.

The HEL1OS, commissioned on October 27, “is set to monitor the sun’s high-energy X-ray activity with fast timing and high-resolution spectra. HEL1OS data enables researchers to study explosive energy release and electron acceleration during impulsive phases of solar flares”.

According to ISRO, flares produce enhanced emission in all wavelengths across the electromagnetic spectrum - radio, optical, UV, soft X-rays, hard X-rays and gamma-rays. Flare emission consists of emissions from accelerated particles.

Aditya-L1, the first space-based Indian mission to study the sun, was launched on September 2 and is currently on its journey to the destination of sun-earth L1 point. 

Aditya-L1will reach at the L1 point in January 2024, will spend its mission life orbiting around L1 in an irregularly shaped orbit, 1.5 million km from the earth.