Aditya-L1: India successfully launches its first mission to the Sun

India has launched its first mission to the Sun, just days after the country made history by becoming the first to land near the Moon's south pole.

The Aditya-L1 rocket lifted off from the launch pad at Sriharikota on Saturday 2 September to start its journey of observation.

It will travel 1.5 million km (932,000 miles) away the Earth - but that's just 1% of the distance between the Earth and the Sun!

India's space agency says it will take four months to travel that far.

India's first space-based mission to study the solar system's biggest object is named after Surya - the Hindu god of Sun who is also known as Aditya.

And L1 represents the exact place between the Sun and Earth where the Indian spacecraft is heading.

Once Aditya-L1 reaches this "parking spot", it would be in the Sun's orbit so would need very little fuel to operate and will be able to watch the Sun constantly and carry out scientific studies.

On Saturday morning, a few thousand people gathered in the viewing gallery set up by the Indian Space Research Agency (Isro) near the launch site to watch the blast off.

Aditya-L1 will allow scientists to observe solar activity, solar wind and solar flares, and their effect on Earth, and will help improve our scientific understanding of the Sun - the 4.5 billion-year-old star that holds our solar system together.

India's solar mission comes just days after the country successfully landed the world's first-ever probe near the lunar south pole.

With that, India also became only the fourth country in the world to achieve a soft landing on the Moon, after the US, the former Soviet Union and China.