A year of the Sun's wild halo, filmed: NASA's PUNCH mission watches the corona dance

We are usually told never to stare at the Sun — so NASA built a mission that does nothing else. PUNCH, four small spacecraft that create a permanent eclipse for their cameras, has been watching the corona, the Sun's searing outer atmosphere, since June 2025. A newly processed video compresses a full year of that watch into a swirling portrait of loops, streamers, and storms of charged particles streaming into space. It is beautiful, but it is also practical: understanding this restless halo is how scientists get better at forecasting the space weather that can disturb satellites, power grids, and astronauts.