India's solar mission, Aditya-L1, enters the Sun's orbit

Aditya-L1 will measure and study the Sun's outermost layers following a four-month voyage.

The Aditya-L1 mission, which was launched in September and is carrying a variety of instruments to measure and observe the Sun's outermost layers, has successfully entered the Sun's orbit after a four-month journey. India's science and technology minister, Jitendra Singh, stated on social media that the probe had reached its final orbit “to discover the mysteries of Sun-Earth connection.” This is the latest achievement for the space exploration ambitions of the most populous country in the world.



Beginning with NASA's Pioneer program in the 1960s, the US and the European Space Agency have despatched many probes to the center of the solar system. Japan and China have also launched their own solar observatory missions into Earth's orbit.



Though named after a Hindu Sun deity, Aditya has traveled 932,000 miles (1.5 million km) from Earth, still only 1% of the distance between Earth and the Sun, and is now at a point where the gravitational forces of both celestial bodies cancel out, allowing it to remain in a stable halo orbit around the Sun. India's prime minister, Narendra Modi, hailed it as another landmark in the country's space program. "It is a testament to the relentless dedication of our scientists," he said on social media. "We will continue to pursue new frontiers of science for the benefit of humanity."



India has a relatively low-budget space program, but it has grown in size and momentum since it first sent a probe to orbit the moon in 2008. In August of last year, India became the first country to land an unmanned craft near the largely unexplored lunar south pole, and the fourth to launch an orbiter. The orbiter, which is estimated to have cost $48 million (£38 million), will study coronal mass ejections, a periodic phenomenon in which huge bursts of plasma and magnetic energy are released from the Sun's atmosphere. These bursts are so powerful they can reach the Earth and disrupt the operations of satellites.

In addition to preparing a joint mission with Japan to send another probe to the moon by 2025 and an orbital mission to Venus within the next two years, India became the first Asian nation to place a craft into orbit around Mars in 2014 and is scheduled to launch a three-day crewed mission into Earth's orbit later this year.