Visible Emission Line Coronagraph

Visible Emission Line Coronagraph Latest News

Recently, scientists at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) have collaborated with NASA to estimate the crucial parameters of a coronal mass ejection (CME) by using Visible Emission Line Coronagraph (VELC) payload onboard India’s Aditya-L1 mission.

About Visible Emission Line Coronagraph

• It is the primary payload of the Aditya-L1 Mission–India’s first mission to observe the Sun from a vantage point 1.5 million kilometres from the earth.

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Features of Visible Emission Line Coronagraph

• It is an internally occulted solar coronagraph capable of simultaneous imaging, spectroscopy, and spectro-polarimetry close to the solar limb.
• It consists of a coronagraph, spectrograph, polarimetry module, and detectors, aside from auxiliary optics.
• It is built by the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) at its CREST (Centre for Research and Education in Science and Technology) campus at Hosakote, Karnataka.

Objectives of Visible Emission Line Coronagraph

• It will observe the solar corona, which is the tenuous, outermost layer of the solar atmosphere. 
• VELC can image the solar corona down to 1.05 times the solar radius, which is the closest any such payload has imaged.
• It will analyze the coronal temperature, plasma velocity, density, etc.
• It will also study Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) and the solar wind.

Source: TH