On Wednesday (Aug. 13), NASA announced that the four satellites of its exciting new sun-studying mission, PUNCH, have successfully reached their stations in orbit around our planet. They all lie along Earth's day-night line to earn a continuous view of our star.
PUNCH, which stands for Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere, is meant to do precisely what its name suggests. It's made up of four separate spacecraft, each of which NASA likens to the size of a standard suitcase, that have the power to collect rich data about the solar wind.
The solar wind refers to the stream of charged particles emanating from the sun at extremely fast speeds — like, a million miles per hour fast. However, even though we know the solar wind is connected to the sun (specifically the sun's corona, or outer atmosphere), it remains unclear where the phenomenon's precise origin lies. That's where PUNCH comes in.
Source: www.space.com
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