Some serendipitous space beauty to start your weekend.

NASA's new PUNCH mission, designed to study the solar wind, just took this ethereal image of the Moon passing the (blocked out) Sun. The Moon's night side is facing us, but it's beautifully lit by Earthshine.

https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/punch/2025/05/12/nasas-punch-catches-first-rainbow-and-other-new-images/ #science #art #nature

More cool imagery from NASA's PUNCH mission. This shot shows the zodiacal light--the glow from sunlight reflecting off interplanetary dust--along with Taurus (top) and the Pleiades (upper right).

https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/punch/2025/05/12/nasas-punch-catches-first-rainbow-and-other-new-images/ #space #science #astronomy #sun

Here's another intriguing view of the zodiacal light from PUNCH. This time the image is color-coded to show how sunshine gets polarized when it reflects off interplanetary dust.

Polarized light offers a way to "see" the invisible flow of the solar wind.

https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/punch/ #science #space #astronomy #astrodon

@coreyspowell
The scale is throwing me off, I keep thinking the sun and moon should be the same size. I guess PUNCH must be a good distance away from Earth to have the moon appear so much smaller?

@chris @coreyspowell I went to the NASA site for more info - nope, the satellites are in low earth orbit. So the Sun and Moon should look roughly the same size.

The alt text on the pic says that the ring around the occulter is diffracted light, not direct sunlight itself.

The occulter would be designed to be significantly larger than the disk of the Sun itself, so that's what you are mistaking for the diameter of the Sun.

@MichaelPorter @coreyspowell
Ah, very interesting, thank you.
@chris @coreyspowell Happy to help 😊

@MichaelPorter @chris @coreyspowell

If I'm understanding the graphic on page 23 correctly (big if), the inner limit of the instrument is 6 solar radii, and it can't see closer to the Sun than that. That would be the size of the occulter, and the occulter is the big disk in the pic Corey posted. In that, the Moon is about 1/6 the width of the large dark disk in the middle (the occulter).
https://punch.space.swri.edu/files/DeForest-regis-20250505.pdf

@coreyspowell this photo gives meme vibes 🙃