It's been a great week for solar science.
A day before the Solar Orbiter spacecraft released its images showing the Sun's south pole for the first time ever, NASA’s solar-watching probe PUNCH released its first jaw-dropping images of giant solar eruptions called coronal mass ejections.
These massive bursts of solar material shoot out into space, often slamming into Earth's atmosphere and disrupting satellites, radio communications and creating dazzling aurora displays.
The new images from PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) have been stitched together into a short video showing coronal mass ejections growing across the inner Solar System.
PUNCH's sensitive wide-field instruments captured the entirety of the coronal mass ejections as they developed in space in greater detail than ever before, says NASA.
The 'spacecraft' consists of four tiny satellites that operate in tandem in low Earth orbit, forming one big super instrument that observes what's happening on the surface of the Sun.
The four PUNCH satellites build a combined field of view and map the region where the Sun’s corona (its outer atmosphere) becomes the solar wind (a stream of charged particles flowing from the Sun into space).
"This is just the opening act," says Craig DeForest, PUNCH mission’s lead scientist.
"Once the satellites are in their final formation, we’ll be able to track space weather in 3D, basically giving us a full Solar System forecast."
Space weather and protecting Earth
PUNCH's view is essential to helping solar scientists better understand and predict space weather.
'Space weather' is the term given to the effect that outbursts from the Sun – coronal mass ejections and solar flares – have across the Solar System.
These phenomena can disrupt communications on Earth, endanger satellites and astronauts working in space and create aurorae in the atmospheres of Solar System planets, including Earth.
Coronal mass ejections can also interfere with GPS systems, internet access and even power grids on Earth.
By watching coronal mass ejections in real time and in full, courtesy of PUNCH, scientists hope to predict the impact of space weather more accurately, and sooner.
That could mean better protection for astronauts, satellites and everyday tech we rely on.
Serious solar science... and stargazing?
PUNCH’s cameras aren’t only watching the Sun.
In these images, you'll also spot familiar stargazing sights like Venus, Jupiter, the Moon, the Orion constellation and the Pleiades star cluster.
It’s like a cosmic timelapse starring the Sun and its neighbours, with the Sun in the centre.
But where is the Sun in these images, and why is there a black circle in the middle?
This is the PUNCH mission's coronagraph, an instrument that features in a lot of solar-observing missions, and blocks out the main body of the Sun.
It works in much the same way as the Moon blocking out the Sun during a total solar eclipse.
Blocking out this central solar disc gives scientists a clearer view of eruptions on the Sun like coronal mass ejections.
It's much the same as holding your hands up to block the Sun on a sunny day, so you can better see what's around you.
With a two-year mission ahead, NASA scientists say PUNCH is just getting warmed up.
The data it collects could revolutionise how we forecast space weather, keeping both satellites and space explorers safer from solar outbursts.
