The sparkling solar wind: Insight from the PUNCH Mission
6:30 – 8:30 pm MDT
What if we could see a solar eclipse 24 hours a day, every day? And what if we could see how the Sun's atmosphere creates a constant stream of plasma, known as the solar wind, as it flows throughout our solar system? NASA's Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) mission does just this — providing a view of a solar eclipse that fills half our sky!
To celebrate World Space Week 2026, NSF NCAR’s Sarah Gibson shares observations and early science results from PUNCH, a novel constellation of four small satellites led by Boulder's Southwest Research Institute and launched in 2025. She will explain how NSF NCAR researchers and colleagues around the world are using these data to obtain global, three-dimensional views of the dynamic solar structure, connecting the Sun, solar wind, and Earth as never before.
Sarah Gibson
Dr. Sarah Gibson is a Senior Scientist in the High Altitude Observatory and was previously Interim Director at HAO (2019-2020). Her research centers on solar drivers of the terrestrial environment, from short-term space weather drivers such as coronal mass ejections (CMEs), to long-term solar cycle variation.
Dr. Gibson uses theoretical models to understand the magnetic origins of CMEs and related space weather phenomena. A particular focus is observations and models of coronal prominence cavities, which are long-lived structures in the Sun’s atmosphere that store the magnetic energy liberated in CMEs. Dr. Gibson has led International Space Science Institute (Switzerland) International Teams on the subjects of Prominence Cavities and Coronal Magnetism, and has led multiple coordinated observing and modeling efforts to characterize the three-dimensional, interconnected solar-heliospheric-planetary system at solar minimum. She is currently Project Scientist on NASA's Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) mission.
Dr. Gibson is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and the recipient of the 2005 American Astronomical Society/Solar Physics Division (AAS/SPD) Karen Harvey Prize and the 2024 AGU/Space Physics and Aeronomy Eugene Parker Lecture. She was a Scientific Editor for the Astrophysical Journal and has served on many national and international committees including the Annual Reviews of Astronomy and Astrophysics Editorial Committee and the National Academies Space Studies Board. She was President of IAU Division E (Sun and Heliosphere) from 2018-2021.
Dr. Gibson loves sharing her work with the public. She has appeared on NOVA, Weather Geeks, written a blog post for the Huffington Post (2015), and prepared and presented oral and written testimony on the significance of space weather for the Joint Subcommittees on Space and Environment Committee on Science, Space, and Technology (U. S. House of Representatives; 2018). She also co-wrote a solar eclipse musical parody (“My Corona”) which won the AAS/SPD Popular Media Award in 2024.
Dr. Gibson received her Bachelor’s Degree in Physics from Stanford University, and her Masters and Doctoral Degrees in Astrophysics from the University of Colorado.