Suggested Searches

PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere)

    NASA’s PUNCH Releases Its First Images of Huge Eruptions from Sun

    An image shows a circular view of the sky, colored gold, around the Sun. A black circular disk blocks the Sun at the center, but a small yellow circle shows the size and location of the Sun within the black disk. Near the top, a bulb-shaped cloud, a coronal mass ejection, extends upward from the Sun.

    NASA’s PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) mission has released its first images of large solar eruptions called coronal mass ejections, or CMEs. The images were presented Tuesday at the 246th American Astronomical Society meeting in Anchorage, Alaska. The images, stitched into a video, show giant CMEs, growing as they travel across the […]

    Read Full Post

    NASA’s PUNCH Catches First Rainbow and Other New Images

    A hazy rainbow-colored glow rises from the bottom of the view, with colors transitioning from red on the far left to green in the center and blue on the far right. The glow is brightest near the bottom center, just above a yellow star symbol, and gradually fades moving upward. The background is black and speckled with stars, including a small cluster to the upper right of center and a larger, V-shaped arrangement of stars in the upper left.

    As instrument commissioning and calibration checks continue for NASA’s newly launched PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) mission, its four spacecraft continue to deliver new images — including its first rainbow-colored view of the sky and the first images taken by two of its instruments. The goal of PUNCH is to reveal new details of […]

    Read Full Post

    NASA’s PUNCH Mission Captures First Images of Sun, Space

    Many dim specks of light are visible across a black background. These are stars. In the middle, the Sun is indicated with a yellow cartoon star. A thin green line crosses from the bottom left of the image, up to the center right. Another crosses from the bottom left, up to the top center. It is labeled Pisces. The image is labeled PUNCH/NFI, First Light, 2025-April-14.

    NASA’s PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) mission successfully completed spacecraft commissioning this week, opening its instrument doors to capture “first light,” the mission’s first images of the Sun’s outer atmosphere and the surrounding space. This is the first step in revealing new details of how the solar atmosphere unfolds and streams through …

    Read Full Post

    Signal Acquired: NASA’s SPHEREx Begins Science Mission

    NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) mission controllers celebrate acquisition of signal after launch on Tuesday, March 11, 2025.

    NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) mission controllers on Earth have received full acquisition of signal from the observatory, indicating the spacecraft is functioning nominally and is power positive.

    Read Full Post

    SPHEREx Observatory Separates From Rocket

    NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) observatory separates from a SpaceX Falcon 9 second stage after launching from Space Launch Complex 4 East from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Tuesday, March 11, 2025.

    NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) observatory has separated from the Falcon 9 rocket’s second stage, on its way to begin its science mission from a sun-synchronous orbit about 404 miles (650 kilometers) above the Earth’s surface.

    Read Full Post

    Liftoff of SPHEREx, PUNCH Missions!

    A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, carrying NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) observatory and PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) satellites, lifts off from Space Launch Complex 4 East from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Tuesday, March 11, 2025.

    Ignition, and liftoff! At 11:10 p.m. EDT (8:10 p.m. PDT), SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base’s Space Launch Complex 4 East, carrying NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) and PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) missions.

    Read Full Post