ISRO's Aditya-L1 spacecraft will observe the Sun during a rare opportunity that will present itself during the Total Solar Eclipse on April 8. The eclipse will occur in Mexico, the US and parts of Canada and Indian scientists are looking to exploit the opportunity to uncover the solar mysteries.

Launched in September 2023, Aditya L-1 is India's maiden solar mission. It is installed 25 lakh km from Earth at the Lagrange Point 1 with an objective to study the Sun's outer atmosphere called Corona, solar flares and high energy X-rays.

"The eclipse presents a rare opportunity to observe the Sun from both space and on Earth and then go on to get a comprehensive picture by cross-relating the observations at a later stage," Professor Durgesh Tripathi at the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) told India Today. He also said that the mission team will observe the Sun using the Solar Ultra-violet Imaging Telescope or SUIT.

According to ISRO, the SUIT is designed to image the solar disk in the near ultra-violet wavelength range. Aditya-L1 has six other instruments that will be used to study the solar winds, X-rays, magnetic field and other solar dynamics.

Apart from Aditya-L1, the European Space Agency's (ESA) Solar Orbiter will also observe the Sun from space. It is orbiting the Sun in an egg-shaped orbit and it was just 44 million km away from the Sun during its latest closest approach on April 4. ESA says that during the eclipse, the orbiter will be able to see the structures in the solar corona face-on on April 8.

“With observations from the ground and from space, we will for sure be able to combine different points of view of the Sun’s corona,” Federico Landini from the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics and member of the solar orbiter team said in a statement.

(With Agency Inputs)