Pune’s IUCAA team develops space telescope to capture ultraviolet imaging of Sun
The observations recorded by SUIT will put India among the top countries to have observed the Sun in the ultraviolet
The city-based Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) has developed a unique space telescope Solar Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (SUIT). The telescope was delivered to Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on June 6 and will be integrated with the ADITYA-L1 mission as an essential instrument in its array. It will then be launched along with the satellite to fly 15 lakh kilometres towards the Sun (to the L1 point) and provide regular images and updates about the Sun’s surface phenomena and space weather.
SUIT has been built under the leadership of Prof AN Ramprakash and Prof Durgesh Tripathi at IUCAA in close collaboration with ISRO.
The observations recorded by SUIT will put India among the top countries to have observed the Sun in the ultraviolet.
Ramprakash said, “SUIT is one of the main payloads on Aditya-L1. It will provide full disk images of the Sun in the 2000 - 4000 A wavelength range. Full disk images in the entire wavelength range have never been obtained. Among many, there are a few fundamental questions that SUIT will address, for example, the existence of a higher temperature atmosphere above the cooler surface, the origin and variation of near-ultraviolet radiation from the Sun, and high energy explosions such as solar flares observed in the solar atmosphere, etc.”
“With its observational capabilities, SUIT will provide observations of the solar atmosphere slicing through different layers, which is missing and considered to be of utmost importance to fully comprehend the complete transport of mass energy within the various layers,” he added.
The overall weight of the payload is 45 kg. It’s 1.5 meters long and the width is 1/2 meter. The telescope is expected to provide images after 112 days of its launch.
“The data will be received by ISRO, it will be sent to the payload operation centre that will be set up in IUCAA. The scientists will process the information and then it will be sent back to ISRO,” said Tripathi.
