Are you worried about solar storms?

We can perhaps defend against them with a high-flying scientific PUNCH!

(Pun intended. Sorry.)

NASA’s PUNCH mission is flying and is beginning to take polarized 3D images of the interaction between the Sun’s Corona and the heliosphere – to help us predict when our closest star is about to ‘go crazy’ and send so much energy our way as to cripple our power grids or our global networks of communications satellites. 

We will hear about the mission during the monthly April National Capital Astronomers meeting this Saturday, 4-11-2026, starting at 7:30 sharp. 

There will be a bit of club business first, then a talk about PUNCH by Dr Michael Kirk, a NASA – Goddard Space Flight Center scientist, followed by telescope observing at and around the University of Maryland’s observatory under what is predicted to be nice clear skies.  

Michael S. F. Kirk – Sciences and Exploration Directorate

If you like, you may bring your own telescope to set up on the pads outside on the observatory grounds, to share views with others. I plan to bring one of the scopes that I made, and I hope we can draft somebody to keep an eye on them during the meeting.

To drive to the meeting in person, aim your GPS at “UMD Observatory” or type in 3255 Metzerott Road, College Park, MD 20740. The inconspicuous entrance sign is on the south side of the road. Public transportation to the location is unfortunately not reliable. 

If you want to join us remotely, here is the link:
UMD-NCA-Zoom-Link
or you can try 

https://umd.zoom.us/j/95619565617pwd=uqwxzZ39zgVfgOypmcp8cy6xFaCcRb.1 (no spaces)

Log in well before 7:30 if possible.

Are you one of the lucky ones who have seen the enormous solar corona during a total eclipse?

Have you seen the Northern or Southern Lights?

These gigantic structures change like our own weather. If you fly near the Arctic or Antarctic circles at night you can see the aurorae just about any time, but the solar corona itself only becomes visible to us on Earth for a few fleeting minutes during a total solar eclipse.

There is a lot that is still unknown about the solar corona — and how it affects the solar winds and the heliopause that protects us from most nasty interstellar radiation. As you probably know, all these connected phenomena influence the Northern lights, can play havoc with radio communications and satellites, and have in the past occasionally knocked out all electricity to large parts of North America and other locations. Larger solar outbursts could conceivably disable every single global communications satellite system, without which modern civilization would largely crash to a halt.

(See List of solar storms – Wikipedia for examples.)

NASA science missions like PUNCH don’t get nearly as much publicity as crewed missions like Artemis. But they also cost a whole lot less, and when they work as planned, they get better data.  

(Compare the photos of the backside of the Moon made just now by the Artemis crew (with their cell phones) with those made by the unsung Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, LRO, which has been orbiting the Moon ever since 2009 and taking very high-resolution photos in lots of wavelengths. LRO not only has detected all sorts of chemical variation on the Moon’s surface, including signs of water ice, and has even sent back images with very clear tracks and rocket blast marks left behind by the Apollo astronauts over 50 years ago!)

These two images are of the same location, Vavilov Crater.

 LRO: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b6/Vavilov_crater_LRO_WAC.jpg/960px-Vavilov_crater_LRO_WAC.jpg

Artemis: Finally, Artemis delivers some exceptional, high-quality photos of the Moon – Ars Technica

The photo from the LRO is incomparably more detailed.

Our speaker, Dr. Michael S. Kirk, is a Research Scientist in the Heliophysics Science Division at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. He plans to explain to us the status and goals of NASA’s PUNCH constellation of four small satellites in low Earth orbit.

Using polarimeters, the craft are supposed to be making global, 3D observations of the entire inner heliosphere to learn how the Sun’s corona becomes the solar wind that comes our way.

PUNCH stands for Polarimeter to UNify the Corona and Heliosphere.

NCA is a 501c3 educational and charitable non-profit, and all of our meetings are free and open to the public. Our website is capitalastronomers.org

Guy Brandenburg,

President, National Capital Astronomers