SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 14 September 2025, Shift 2 · General Awareness · Question 12 of 100

We transcribed this text from the pictures on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; the answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 11 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. From 2025 the candidate response sheet prints every question and option as a picture, so the text here is transcribed from those pictures for this shift and checked against them independently; where the layout carries meaning, the picture is shown as well. Each answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. SSC released a tentative key for challenge and later its final one, both only to candidates behind a login, and the sheet does not say which of the two it carries. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

Aditya-L1 spacecraft primarily studies which part of the Sun?

(a)Regolith
(b)Corona
(c)Craters
(d)Magnetosphere

Answer

Why

Correct — B. ISRO calls Aditya-L1 the first space-based Indian mission to study the Sun, placed in a halo orbit around Lagrange point L1, about 1.5 million km from Earth.

Its science objectives centre on the Sun's upper atmosphere, the chromosphere and corona: coronal heating, the initiation of coronal mass ejections, and flares. Its VELC payload is a coronagraph. So option (b).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Regolith — Regolith is the loose layer of dust and broken rock on solid bodies such as the Moon. The Sun has no solid surface to carry one.
(c)
Craters — Craters are bowl-shaped hollows on solid surfaces, such as the impact craters of the Moon. The Sun is a sphere of hot plasma with no solid surface.
(d)
Magnetosphere — A magnetosphere is the region a planet's own magnetic field controls, as around Earth. Aditya-L1 measures fields at L1, but its imagers target the chromosphere and corona.

Concept

ISRO says Aditya-L1's seven payloads observe the photosphere, the chromosphere and the Sun's outermost layer, the corona.

Four view the Sun directly, among them VELC (corona imaging and spectroscopy) and SUIT (photosphere and chromosphere imaging). The other three study particles and fields in situ at L1, where a halo orbit gives a view of the Sun free of eclipses.

Key facts

Aditya-L1 was launched by PSLV-C57 on 2 September 2023.
It was inserted into a halo orbit around the Sun-Earth L1 point on 6 January 2024.
L1 is about 1.5 million km from Earth.
Its Visible Emission Line Coronagraph (VELC) carries out imaging and spectroscopy of the corona.

Study next

Layers of the Sun: photosphere, chromosphere and coronaLagrange points and why L1 suits watching the SunCoronal mass ejections and space weather

Common traps

Picking magnetosphere because Aditya-L1 carries a magnetometer, when its imagers target the corona.
Choosing a surface feature like craters or regolith for the Sun, which has no solid surface.

Here a mission is matched to the part of the Sun it studies. Aditya-L1 flew on PSLV-C57, and the PSLV is tested at 12 Sep 2025, 16:00, GA Q.16, an assertion-reason item calling it ISRO's workhorse (keyed: both true, and R explains A).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Scientific Research — all 178 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.