Public Invited to NASA Pre-Launch Event Hosted by at Cal Poly Physics Department
NASA PUNCH scientist Nicholeen Viall will present at the Feb. 23 forum.
February 2025 / Event Announcement
by NICK WILSON
The public is invited to Cal Poly for an afternoon of astronomy presentations and family-oriented activities on campus in advance of NASA’s PUNCH mission launch at Vandenberg Space Force Base.
The Ross and Sue Benitez Space Exploration Forum, sponsored by the Cal Poly Physics Department, is collaborating with NASA PUNCH mission officials to host the event.
The Cal Poly public event takes place Sunday, Feb. 23, from 1-4 p.m. at the Advanced Technologies Lab (ATL) in advance of the PUNCH launch on Feb. 27.
PUNCH stands for Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere, and the mission involves use of four small satellites that will create 3D images to study solar wind (a continuous stream of charged particles flowing from the sun’s outermost atmosphere).
The Feb. 23 public forum at Cal Poly will include solar telescope observing and eight inspiring tabletop educational activities and demonstrations.
Presenters and facilitators will include Dr. Craig DeForest, overall leader of the NASA PUNCH mission; Dr. Nicholeen Viall, a NASA mission scientist for PUNCH; and Dr. Cherilynn Morrow, leader of the PUNCH public engagement program.
No registration is needed. Free parking on campus is available in lots C7, H2-C and H2-A, near the ATL building (Building 7) and the intersection at Highland Drive and California Boulevard. For more details, visit: afd.calpoly.edu/parking/parkingoncampus
The Feb. 23 schedule of events is as follows:
1 p.m. Presentation by Dr. Craig DeForest
2 p.m. Family-Oriented Interactive Activities
3 p.m. Presentation by Dr. Nicholeen Viall
Activities will include an indoor tabletop demo of pinhole projection, stations to create PUNCH team cards, a tabletop demo with PUNCH polarized sunglasses and a LED desk lamp and much more.
The PUNCH mission will launch from a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will lift four small satellites (each the size of a 3-foot suitcase). Each 88-pound satellite is essentially a camera designed to work together with the others to make composite movies that routinely track the sun’s coronal mass ejections, or space storms, as they approach the Earth and fan out across the solar system.
PUNCH’s two-year mission will provide scientists with new information about how potentially disruptive solar flares and coronal mass ejections form and evolve. This could lead to more accurate predictions about the arrival of space weather events at Earth and impact on humanity’s robotic explorers in space.
