Weekly - Chandrayaan begins hibernation and more
Weekly Space News - Quick and Easy
Pragyan finds sulpher near the lunar south pole
Last week, ISRO’s Praggyan rover from the Chandrayaan 3 mission confirmed the presence of sulfur near the south pole of the moon for the first time. Since sulfur is an element commonly found in volcanic areas, this new finding will help us understand more about the moon’s volcanic history.
NASA gets ready to receive asteroid samples
The OSIRIS-REx craft was launched by NASA in 2016 to collect a sample from an asteroid and return it to the Earth. The craft was supposed to collect a sample from the asteroid called ‘01955 Bennu’. It successfully landed on the asteroid in 2020. It then departed after collecting samples in 2021 and is heading towards the earth right now. The craft is planned to return to the Earth on the 24th of September this month. This is the first time a sample return mission is being attempted on an asteroid by NASA. However, this is not the first time it is being done. JAXA’s Hayabusa missions have previously accomplished this.
Chandrayaan begins hibernation
As the lunar night is about to begin for the Chandrayaan 3 mission, the rover (Pragyan) is parked and has been put to sleep by ISRO. This is due to the fact that both the lander and rover are solar-powered and cannot work during the lunar night. ISRO is going to try and reactivate the lander and rover after another 14 days on the rare occasion that the electronics survive the long, cold night on the moon.
ISRO launches Aditya-L1
ISRO successfully launched the Aditya-L1 solar mission last week. Aditya is a solar observatory designed to study the sun by orbiting around it at a distance of about 1.5 million km from the Earth at Lagrange Point 1 (hence the name L1). While 1.5 million km might seem like a large distance, it is nowhere near the sun; it is only at 1% of the distance to the sun which is 150 million km. There are five other Lagrange points (named after mathematician Josephy Lagrange) which are seen in the image below, each located at a different point around the sun. Many other solar observatories are also located at Lagrange point 1 like DSCOVR, WIND, etc.
