The Proba-3/ASPIICS paper just dropped on ArXiV! If you like heliophysics, the corona, or cool mission concepts, give it a read. ASPIICS is a coronagraph comprising two spacecraft in formation: a camera and a separate occulter. They're producing amazing images. ☀️🛰️🔭🚀 arxiv.org/abs/2511.01679

Kevin Marvel is leaving AAS. ☀️🧪🔭 aas.org/press/aas-an...

This is exactly the reason every mission and scientist should have a wide-open data policy! PUNCH has specific science objectives (looking at the solar wind) – but in the right hands the data can reveal amazing things NOT part of our original science. Giving those hands access is best for all. ☀️🔭🧪

Cluster is an amazing story: the initial flight build were all lost in the Ariane V launch – possibly from the most expensive one-line software bug ever (integer overflow in a guidance system, which caused the >$1B rocket to explode). Ultimately very successful despite that "little setback".

We will greatly miss Al Nagler, founder of Tele Vue Optics (@televueoptics.bsky.social), who left us Monday. I was honored to know him: a brilliant man with a gentle and joyful disposition. Among many other accomplishments, he designed the Wide Field Imager optics in use on the PUNCH mission. ☀️🔭

I'm delighted to see that @swri.org has joined us here! Southwest Research Institute does a ton of interesting things, but of course #heliophysics is one of them. The outreach/social-media team are really great, give 'em a follow! You won't be sorry. 🧪 (bsky.app/profile/swri...)

There's been a large uptick in the amount of AI slop lately on all topics in all venues, including #heliophysics here. I've been updating the feed regexps to remove certain keywords typical of "fake news" clickbait, so hopefully the news quality will remain high. Let me know if you see any issues. ☀️

Don't ever change, Apple Photos AI. You are very helpful. No, really. Without you, I might have confused this for a picture of a golden retriever.

Sometimes we all need a little boddhi satva in our lives. Or a big one.

Wow. It can be hard to remember: science in general and #NASA and #heliophysics in particular are still revered globally. This am in the security line in Delhi (coming home) I handed @punch-mission.bsky.social and NASA stickers to kids. They lit up so much at meeting a real live scientist. ☀️🛰️🧪

The Moon has a tenuous atmosphere — so tenuous that #spaceweather affects atmospheric #weather. Congratulations to ISRO and the Chandrayaan-2 team for measuring “high” pressure zones associated with CME impacts on the lunar atmosphere! ☀️🛰️🧪🆒

It was amazingly fun to give a public lecture for the Breakthrough Science Society in Kerala, India this week. Such a vibrant and interested audience, in a beautiful place! ☀️ #SciComm

Are you an undergrad or grad student nearing graduation? Find your next gig! Announcing: the AAS/SPD grad student & postdoc opportunity fair, Wed. 5-Nov. Hear about opportunities across the nation, meet potential advisors, & learn about your next career step. 🧪🔭☀️🎢⚛️ spd.aas.org/graduate-stu...

A lot of things sort of suck right now. I was delighted to find out that, for under $40, you can now buy an instrument that will tell you, with digital precision, just how much things suck. Provided you can attach a hose to those things. www.amazon.com/Manometer-Pr...

What's all this fuss about solving for eigenmodes of mechanical systems? Gaussian elimination has been a solved problem since 1835. #math #dadjoke #illseemyselfoutnow

Quick update on the #heliophysics feed. We've had issues with AI spam coming from many related accounts, to prevent blocklisting. Fortunately, regexps work fine. I'm fixin' to transition us back from Skyfeed to the Graze servers. It should be pretty seamless. I'll post when it happens, though. ☀️

Great milestone from the PUNCH SOC team this week -- as we continue refining our data, we've rolled out preliminary Level 3 data, with most of the solar F corona removed. Current data are "v0g"; expect version "v0h" in about two weeks. We'll reprocess everything when we reach v1. ☀️

Reposting this with #spaceweather tag so the #heliophysics feed will pick it up.

David Hathaway and Lisa Upton just released an updated solar cycle prediction. In their words, it's "virtually unchanged since early 2022", an indicator that they're more or less getting it right with empirical prediction. Looks like we're *just* past maximum in the current cycle. ☀️🔭🧪🚀

PUNCH has tracked Comet 2025/SWAN continuously at 4 minute cadence since early Aug, and 3I/Atlas continuously since 21-Sep. With the U.S. govt. shut down, I've been asked not to publish PUNCH imagery of 3I/Atlas. Instead, here's a tracked image from just before it entered our FOV. ☀️🔭🛰️🚀

Today I was reminded of the Isle of Lesbos and their great contribution to the architecture of western civilization. For over 1,000 years the #Lesbian #Rule was part of every Mason's training. Now considered obsolete – but its descendants are still relevant today. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesbian...)

Comet 3I/Atlas is a fun challenge for PUNCH. We're very sensitive, though not a "telescope" (~2.5' resolution: basically naked-eye). At mag 12, the sky is *very* crowded. But we can see Atlas and SWAN in nearly-raw data. We're imaging at 4 minute cadence 24/7; FOV is 90° centered on the Sun. 🧪🔭🛰️☀️

Today I've been lucky to attend [remotely] the first Space Weather Observations summit, hosted by NOAA. Lots of great talks on how we (USA) are protecting ourselves from solar activity and "space storms". The SWFO launch yesterday is part of that activity. www.nesdis.noaa.gov/events/space... ☀️🛰️

Very nice to see ngGONG move forward! GONG is a decades-old global instrument on which the Sun never sets, to observe the Sun around the clock. It provides very important continuous monitoring of space weather and allows us to image the interior of the star itself. ☀️

In order to view the #solarwind, PUNCH also captures literally everything in the sky that is within 45° of the Sun. When Comet 2025 R2 (SWAN) was announced, we looked for it in the data, and there it was! Here's a blog post about it. ☀️🛰️🔭🧪 whtwnd.com/punch-missio...

It's surprisingly tricky to curate #heliophysics and keep spam at bay. Kudos to those who run the big/more-popular lists! I use regexps, a block list, and a little attention to keep heliophysics in and other things out. Please LMK if I'm getting the balance right, or if you'd like it tweaked! ☀️

Interesting #art #sculpture seen in the #Prague airport. "Pegasus", 2010.

It took years, but I digitized and ditched my wall of binders full of Xeroxed journal articles on paper. I love #Zotero. But I'm starting to have 2nd thoughts about going all-digital. This morning I opened up Gosling 1997 ("CMEs: an Overview") and was greeted with this. Yikes! ☀️🧪

Hey #Costco , it is September 13. September. It is not even the equinox yet. Why are your #Christmas decorations up?

More interesting vanishing points. This skybridge is in Manchester, UK. "Feels" like noir science fiction set from the 1990s.

What a coincidence! This is the meeting I left Prague to attend! Enroute now from Solar Polarization Workshop XII to UKSWSE III. ☀️

It’s easy to forget, in a world of humongous jetliners like the A380, just how huge and imposing even a “little” EJ commuter jet is when seen from up close. We lost something by switching to sanitized enclosed jetway chutes at most airports.

Pretty. I walked through here while adjusting to jet-lag yesterday, just before heading back to the hotel to crash and sleep.

I just climbed into the largest aircraft I have ever flown in. Lots of planetary scientists and other solar people in here too. The A380 is truly enormous.

Thanks, @ellecordova.bsky.social. We’re trying. 🧪

This cartoon is from 2006 but is still relevant today, 19 years later.

With another bright halo CME crossing the solar system and coming right at us, I'm feeling like a kid a couple of days before Christmas: when the PUNCH data turn up in the next day or two, it's going to be gorgeous! (@PUNCH-mission.bsky.social)

It's moments like this, when I find myself in an international teleconference with ~100 of the world's leading astronomers, discussing how we're all tracking an interstellar comet streaking across our solar system, that I wonder whether we're really living in the Marvel Comics universe.

It's hard to grasp the scale of DKIST without going to see it. That "small"hole in the dome is over 4 meters across. Results like this are generated by the physical telescope of course, but it's also a mountain of very, very clever post-processing methods to mitigate effects of our atmosphere. ☀️🔭🧪

The #heliophysics feed has been spotty for several weeks: the feed provider had scaling issues as they grow. I've switched it back to @skyfeed.app for now. hopefully it will do a better job of picking up matching stuff from the firehose. Please tag me if you notice any issues. ☀️

Welcome to the #heliophysics feed! Solar, heliospheric, geospace, and space weather relevant posts, lightly curated. Reply and express your interest, to be able to post here with "☀️". Liking the feed (click "Heliophysics" in your "# Feeds" tab, then ♡ → ♥️) will help new users to find it.

#Starlink is now being used by 6M people, according to a #SpaceX email I got today. That's something like of $6B/year just in ISP fees. Last year SpaceX made just over $4B launching Falcon 9s. So SpaceX really is now a global #ISP with a side business in launching rockets.

Congratulations to Waratah Seed-1 for winning the SmallSat Mission of the Year award! #SmallSat 🚀🛰️☀️

The #PUNCH mission is a finalist for the AIAA "Small Satellite Mission of the Year." Vote here if you'd like to support this incredible success! aiaasmstcawards0491.survey.fm/moty2025 #space #astronomy #astrophotography #Heliophysics 🛰️🔭🦛

The #AIAA #Smallsat conference is going on right now. PUNCH is a finalist for their "Smallsat Mission of the Year" award! Please take a moment to click through and vote "standing ovation" for PUNCH! Voting is open through Tuesday 12-August. ☀️🛰️🚀 sites.google.com/aiaa-smstc.o...

I will never get used to just how fast those things skedaddle. “Bat out of Hell” springs to mind, but Meatloaf was never that zippy.

Encourage discussion with open-ended questions. It's easy! Wrong: Do you like to watch baseball? Right: What the hell's wrong with you?

In case you're wondering what's wrong with your #starlink right now, it's apparently down globally. Reddit has some threads on it, in r/starlink.

This is wonderful news. SWFO-L1 is something we've needed to deploy since at least 1998.

TRACERS and @punch-mission.bsky.social were selected at the same time, and there are significant crossovers between the two missions' science. I can't wait to see our sister mission go!