Four spacecraft, one instrument … imaging almost nothing at all.
PUNCH is a polarizing wide-field imager, distributed across four
orbiting spacecraft, to track space weather (and solar wind) across
the heliosphere. (Non-NASA account for the mission team).
PUNCH mission
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Girl Scouts earn the PUNCH Ancient & Modern Sunwatching Patch!
We are working with the #girlscouts to teach kids about #heliophysics and the amazing world around us. A few will become scientists, and all will carry their knowledge into society. ☀️🧪🛰️🔭
whtwnd.com/punch-missio...
Aww, thanks @craig.deforest.org. We're still going strong! Watch for some very cool comet results and new data products in the next few weeks!
Two great tastes that taste great together! ☀️🧪🔭
PUNCH images are now making tomographic models of the solar wind – like a CAT scan of the entire inner solar system! ☀️🧪🔭🛰️
whtwnd.com/punch-missio...
Even spacecraft experience the astronomical seasons just like we do here on Earth! Here's a plot showing how the PUNCH spacecrafts' batteries saw increasing use during our roughly-75-day "eclipse season" near the winter solstice.
☀️🛰️🧪🔭
Full writeup here: whtwnd.com/punch-missio...
We're doing quantitative analysis now, tracking CME fronts across the solar system. A tried-and-true way to do that is by generating "height-time maps" (also called "J-maps") that show at a glance how each event moves. Here's a blog post describing how we do that. ☀️🧪🛰️🔭
whtwnd.com/punch-missio...
Polarization Fireworks | PUNCH mission | WhiteWind blog
PUNCH science nugget #24: some cool "fireworks" in our polarized images! #solarcorona ☀️🛰️🔭🧪
The upper (or outer) limit of the solar corona is the "Alfvén surface. One of our objectives is to map the surface on the daily. Our big-sister mission Parker Solar Probe flies through that region. Some of our Co-I's have been modeling its evolution across years. 🧪☀️🔭🛰️
whtwnd.com/punch-missio...
A Celestial Staring Contest (across 1 AU)
PUNCH observes Parker Solar Probe continuously. But Parker Solar Probe also observes PUNCH from time to time! Click the WhiteWind blog link for a nice visual of this celestial "staring contest" between the two missions. ☀️🧪🔭🛰️
whtwnd.com/punch-missio...
It's been six months since our "first light" release of science data, and also since the PUNCH Outreach Project observed the (June 3) "Double Diamond" at the iconic Chaco Canyon "curly zia" petroglyph (which appears to be among the oldest human renderings of the solar corona). ☀️🔭🛰️
In October 2022, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope and the European Space Agency (ESA) Solar Orbiter carried out their first coordinated campaign, capturing a...
A colorful image of the solar corona, starfield, and dust shows colorful streaks from the polarized corona and moving dust motes near the PUNCH spacecraft
A debris impact on WFI-2, together with the p...
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June 3rd, 2025: Sunrise over Triangle Rock in Chaco Canyon AND the "first light" release image for PUNCH
The PUNCH Outreach team has contributed to cultural astronomy research in Chaco Canyon, ...
Happy birthday, @punch-mission.bsky.social! One year (minus two hours) ago as I post, this (pic) happened in California. 40 min later, the 4 PUNCH satellites deployed over Africa. Since then, we've downlinked ~1.5 million images of space – and changed the way humanity sees our environment. ☀️🛰️🧪🔭
