User:Zowie/sandbox

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The Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) is a NASA space mission in development for the SMEX element of NASA's Explorers Program, after selection for flight in 2019. PUNCH is being developed by a partnership of the Southwest Research Institute, the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, and the U.K.'s Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. It comprises four smallsats that will launch on a single NASA-provided launch vehicle into Sun-synchronous Low Earth Orbit, to image the boundary between the Sun's corona and the solar wind. The estimated launch date is in late 2022. PUNCH will image free electrons in interplanetary space, which reflect sunlight via Thomson scattering. It will make use of the polarization properties of Thomson-scattered light to produce 3D images of coronal mass ejections and other solar wind phenomena.