Science & Tech · Space · 3 hrs ago
NASA’s PUNCH mission shows a year of the sun’s changing corona
NASA’s PUNCH mission has captured a year of the sun’s corona in a newly processed video.
The corona is the sun’s outer atmosphere, and it is far hotter than the layers beneath it.
PUNCH uses four spacecraft orbiting Earth and a special instrument that blocks direct sunlight to observe this region.
The video shows bright rays tracing the sun’s magnetic field, along with bursts called coronal mass ejections.
These observations help researchers see how the corona changes with the solar wind and eruptions, which matters for understanding the sun’s activity.
At first, reflected sunlight from Earth overwhelmed the instrument’s signal, but image processing made the corona visible.
The video also includes background stars, planets and comets passing through the spacecraft’s view.
NASA’s PUNCH mission has released a video showing changes in the sun’s corona over about a year.
The mission has observed the sun since June 2025 using four spacecraft orbiting Earth.
The video shows bright rays from sunlight reflecting off electrons, as well as coronal mass ejections.
Image processing helped the team address Earthshine that initially overwhelmed the corona signal.
- Who
- NASA’s PUNCH mission team.
- What
- The mission released a video showing the sun’s changing corona.
- When
- The video was reported on October 14, 2026; PUNCH has observed the sun since June 2025.
- Where
- The sun, observed by four spacecraft orbiting Earth.
- Why
- PUNCH is studying the corona and the solar wind; the video shows how the corona changes.
This story does not have two clearly opposing sides.
PUNCH began observing the sun.
Comet C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) passed very close to the sun and appeared in the video.
Scientific American reported on the video showing about a year of PUNCH data.
- Spacecraft
- Four
- Mission name
- Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere
- Observation start
- June 2025
- Comet appearance
- C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS), April 19, 2026
- Published
- October 14, 2026
What people are saying
We can see that the corona is constantly changing as a result of the solar wind—a stream of charged particles—and coronal mass ejections.
a triumph
you couldn’t see a darn thing
the amount of particles in the corona and the shape of the magnetic field