NASA has shared a brilliant new footage of comet 2025 R2 or comet SWAN captured by the PUNCH telescopes. The footage was released on Tuesday on the 30th launch anniversary of the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft, which discovered comet SWAN along with thousands of others. NASA says this comet was first spotted by Ukrainian amateur astronomer Vladimir Bezugly on September 11 in images taken by the SWAN (Solar Wind Anisotropies) instrument aboard SOHO.
Captured between August 25 and October 2, the new footage of comet SWAN’s transit was made by combining images from the Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere or PUNCH telescopes.
Comet SWAN is on the move. ☄️
Captured by @NASA‘s PUNCH spacecraft, comet 2025 R2 (SWAN) can be seen moving away from the Sun as the solar wind blows its tail away, creating the illusion that the comet is “moving backward.” 🔗: https://t.co/GMmjGjHr1s pic.twitter.com/NZaGfi0aQv
— NASA Science (@NASAScience_) December 2, 2025
“Capturing a new image of the comet every few minutes, PUNCH’s observations may be the longest any comet has been tracked with such frequency,” Craig DeForest, the mission’s principal investigator, said in a statement.
In another set of images taken between September 11 and 22, PUNCH saw comet SWAN passing between Mars and the star named Spica in the constellation Virgo. The interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS also made a brief appearance. According to NASA, PUNCH captured a new image of comet SWAN every four minutes through October 5 and saw its tail grow, shrink, and flicker under the influence of the solar wind.
NASA’s PUNCH mission
The PUNCH mission launched in March this year and it involves four satellites that fly in a formation in Earth’s orbit. This constellation is designed to make global, 3D observations of the entire inner heliosphere to learn how the Sun’s corona becomes the solar wind.
PUNCH mission scientist Nicholeen Viall explains that the Sun’s corona (outermost atmosphere) fills our solar system with charged particles that push against the interstellar medium and create a bubble in the process. This bubble is called the heliosphere and PUNCH’s objective is to study how the heliosphere is created by the corona.
PUNCH’s data will be invaluable to NASA and its partners as it will enable better forecasting of strong solar events like flares and coronal mass ejections that create space weather effects. These events can significantly impact astronauts living aboard the International Space Station, satellites and power grids.
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