PUNCH mission instruments collect first images

The Southwest Research Institute-led Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) mission collected its first images following its March 11 launch into polar orbit around Earth. The mission’s four small suitcase-sized spacecraft will act as a single virtual instrument 8,000 miles across to image the solar corona, the sun’s outer atmosphere, as it transitions into the solar wind that fills and defines our solar system.