By imaging the Sun’s corona and the solar wind together, scientists hope to better understand the entire inner heliosphere – Sun, solar wind, and Earth – as a single connected system.
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By imaging the Sun’s corona and the solar wind together, scientists hope to better understand the entire inner heliosphere – Sun, solar wind, and Earth – as a single connected system.Three of the PUNCH satellites will carry a Wide Field Imager (WFI), and the fourth will carry the Narrow Field Imager (NFI).The Narrow Field Imager (NFI)The Narrow Field Image (NFI) is a coronagraph, a type of device that blocks out the bright light from the Sun to better see details in the Sun's outer atmosphere, or corona. The coronagraph will have a similar field of view as the SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO) C3 field, from 6 to 32 solar radii on the sky, and it will view the corona in both polarized and unpolarized light.Wide Field Imager (WFI)The Wide Field Imager (WFI) is a heliospheric imager, a device that provides views from 18 to 180 solar radii (45 degrees) away from the Sun in the sky. Heliospheric imagers use an artificial “horizon” and deep baffles to view the very faint outermost portion of the solar corona and the solar wind itself. The instrument reduces direct sunlight by over 16 orders of magnitude, which is like the ratio between the mass of a human and the mass of a cold virus. The wide-field imaging optics are based on the design of the famous Nagler eyepieces, which are known among observational astronomers for their clarity, low distortion, wide field, and achromatic focus. Three of the PUNCH spacecraft will carry a WFI instrument. || ", "release_date": "2025-01-24T14:00:00-05:00", "update_date": "2025-02-11T10:08:04.490942-05:00", "main_image": { "id": 1141548, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a014700/a014771/NFI_LEO_Animation.00001_print.jpg", "filename": "NFI_LEO_Animation.00001_print.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Animation depicting the PUNCH Narrow Field Imager, or NFI instrument, from low Earth orbit. The NFI is designed to capture high-resolution images of the Sun's corona.Credit: NASA’s Conceptual Image Lab/Kim Dongjae, Walt Feimer", "width": 1024, "height": 576, "pixels": 589824 } }, { "id": 14770, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14770/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "PUNCH Satellites Test Operations at Vandenberg Space Force Base", "description": "NASA’s Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere, or PUNCH mission, is a constellation of four small satellites in low Earth orbit that will make global, 3D observations of the Sun's corona to better understand how the mass and energy there becomes the solar wind that fills the solar system.By imaging the Sun’s corona and the solar wind together, scientists hope to better understand the entire inner heliosphere – Sun, solar wind, and Earth – as a single connected system.The PUNCH mission is led by Southwest Research Institute’s office in Boulder, Colorado. The mission is managed by the Explorers Program Office at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. || ", "release_date": "2025-01-24T09:00:00-05:00", "update_date": "2025-01-27T14:36:30.442291-05:00", "main_image": { "id": 1141479, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a014700/a014770/KSC-20250119-PH-ATR01_0349~orig_print.jpg", "filename": "KSC-20250119-PH-ATR01_0349~orig_print.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Technicians use an overheard crane to lift NASA’s PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) spacecraft onto a work stand for testing operations at the Astrotech Processing Facility on Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Sunday, Jan. 19, 2025.Credit: USSF 30th Space Wing/Antonio Ram", "width": 1024, "height": 683, "pixels": 699392 } }, { "id": 14768, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14768/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "PUNCH Satellites Solar Array Deployment Test", "description": "NASA’s Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere, or PUNCH mission, is a constellation of four small satellites in low Earth orbit that will make global, 3D observations of the Sun's corona to better understand how the mass and energy there becomes the solar wind that fills the solar system.By imaging the Sun’s corona and the solar wind together, scientists hope to better understand the entire inner heliosphere – Sun, solar wind, and Earth – as a single connected system.The PUNCH mission is led by Southwest Research Institute’s office in Boulder, Colorado. The mission is managed by the Explorers Program Office at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. || ", "release_date": "2025-01-23T17:00:00-05:00", "update_date": "2025-01-30T14:14:44.008289-05:00", "main_image": { "id": 1141422, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a014700/a014768/KSC-20250121-PH-ANV01_0002~orig_print.jpg", "filename": "KSC-20250121-PH-ANV01_0002~orig_print.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Crews conduct a solar array deployment test on the spacecraft of NASA’s PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) satellites at Astrotech Space Operations located on Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025.Credit: USSF 30th Space Wing/Alex Valdez", "width": 1024, "height": 683, "pixels": 699392 } }, { "id": 14767, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14767/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "PUNCH Satellites Arrival at Vandenberg Space Force Base", "description": "NASA’s Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere, or PUNCH mission, is a constellation of four small satellites in low Earth orbit that will make global, 3D observations of the Sun's corona to better understand how the mass and energy there becomes the solar wind that fills the solar system.By imaging the Sun’s corona and the solar wind together, scientists hope to better understand the entire inner heliosphere – Sun, solar wind, and Earth – as a single connected system.The PUNCH mission is led by Southwest Research Institute’s office in Boulder, Colorado. The mission is managed by the Explorers Program Office at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. || ", "release_date": "2025-01-23T16:00:00-05:00", "update_date": "2025-01-23T16:22:18.718501-05:00", "main_image": { "id": 1141370, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a014700/a014767/KSC-20250118-PH-ANV01_0005~orig_print.jpg", "filename": "KSC-20250118-PH-ANV01_0005~orig_print.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "A transport truck carrying four small satellites of NASA’s PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) arrives at Astrotech Space Operations located inside Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Saturday, Jan. 18, 2025.Credit: USSF 30th Space Wing/Alex Valdez", "width": 1024, "height": 682, "pixels": 698368 } }, { "id": 14765, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14765/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "PUNCH Assembly and Testing", "description": "NASA’s Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere, or PUNCH mission, is a constellation of four small satellites in low Earth orbit that will make global, 3D observations of the Sun's corona to better understand how the mass and energy there becomes the solar wind that fills the solar system.By imaging the Sun’s corona and the solar wind together, scientists hope to better understand the entire inner heliosphere – Sun, solar wind, and Earth – as a single connected system.The PUNCH mission is led by Southwest Research Institute’s office in Boulder, Colorado. The mission is managed by the Explorers Program Office at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. || ", "release_date": "2025-01-23T15:00:00-05:00", "update_date": "2025-01-23T15:41:27.856138-05:00", "main_image": { "id": 1141329, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a014700/a014765/14765_PUNCH_001.00001_print.jpg", "filename": "14765_PUNCH_001.00001_print.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Southwest Research Institute conducts final assembly and testing of the PUNCH spacecraft in its cleanroom facilities in San Antonio, Texas.Credit: NASA/SwRI", "width": 1024, "height": 576, "pixels": 589824 } }, { "id": 20388, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/20388/", "page_type": "Animation", "title": "PUNCH Spacecraft Beauty Passes", "description": "NASA’s Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) mission is a constellation of four small satellites in Sun-synchronous, low Earth orbit that will make global, 3D observations of the young solar wind, from the outermost solar atmosphere to the inner heliopshere. Images of unprecedented quality will help to close a 60-year gap in measurements of understanding of what occurs in this region of space. PUNCH will share a ride to space with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Re-ionization, and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx) mission. The missions launched on March 11, 2025, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.Get the latest updates on NASA's PUNCH blog. || ", "release_date": "2023-12-05T14:00:00-05:00", "update_date": "2025-08-22T11:26:05.819423-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 1052261, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a020000/a020300/a020388/H_0823_Punch_SunEnding_V01.00001_print.jpg", "filename": "H_0823_Punch_SunEnding_V01.00001_print.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Conceptual AnimationA conceptual animation of the PUNCH spacecraft. Working together, the four suitcase-sized satellites will create a combined field of view and map the region where the Sun’s corona, or outer atmosphere, transitions to the solar wind (the constant outflow of material from the Sun),Credit: NASA's Conceptual Image Lab", "width": 1024, "height": 576, "pixels": 589824 } } ], "sources": [], "products": [], "newer_versions": [], "older_versions": [], "alternate_versions": [] }