Assam's Tezpur University researcher part of ISRO’s solar mission

TEZPUR: A PhD student of Assam’s Tezpur University is working hard as a member of the team behind India’s first solar mission, scheduled to be launched next month by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). Janmejoy Sarkar joined the ambitious Aditya L1 mission as a Senior Research Fellow from the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) in Pune two years ago, the university said in a statement on Saturday.

An alumnus of Tezpur University, Chayan Dutta, was also in the Chandrayaan-3 team that made the spacecraft successfully land on the Moon on August 23, scripting history. Sarkar, who completed his post-graduation from Tezpur University in 2018 and is currently doing PhD at the Department of Physics, is developing IUCAA’s Solar Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (SUIT) payload on board Aditya-L1, the statement said. His responsibility has been the optical and mechanical integration, instrument calibration, qualification and testing of the payload.

ALSO READ| IITM, Pune, Tezpur University to assess net ecosystem exchange of carbon dioxide in Kaziranga

The project is part of his PhD. Aditya L1, likely to be launched in September, will be the first space-based Indian mission dedicated to studying the Sun. It will study the star’s corona (visible and near infrared rays), photosphere (soft and hard X-ray), chromosphere (ultraviolet), solar emissions, solar winds and flares, and Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs), and will carry out round-the-clock imaging of the Sun.

“I always had interest in Solar Physics and Astronomical Instrumentation and Tezpur University has encouraged me to pursue my dreams. I am happy to play a small role in this project of ISRO,” Sarkar said. Prof Shambhu Nath Singh, Vice-Chancellor of the university, expressed happiness for the work done by Dutta and Sarkar. “It is our quality education and research that has produced resources like Dutta and Sarkar and I trust their success story will inspire and motivate our faculty and students to excel further,” he added.