NASA's Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) mission has released its first images, marking a significant step in understanding the Sun's dynamics. The four spacecraft, launched on March 11, 2025, are designed to observe the solar corona as it transitions into the solar wind.
On April 14, 2025, the Narrow Field Imager (NFI) and one Wide Field Imager (WFI) captured their first images. Two days later, the remaining WFIs also began capturing images. The NFI image highlighted star fields visible through the zodiacal light, a faint glow from dust orbiting the Sun. On April 18, 2025, the WFI-2 instrument captured sequential images through its polarizers, creating a rainbow-colored view to show the polarization of zodiacal light.
On April 27, 2025, the NFI captured an image of the new Moon passing by the Sun. The mission aims to understand how the Sun's corona transforms into the solar wind, which can affect Earth by disrupting satellites and power grids. The PUNCH mission is now in its commissioning phase, with the science mission set to begin in June 2025.