Scientists using continuous imagery from NASA's PUNCH mission predicted the near-Earth arrival of a solar eruption to within 30 minutes in an initial proof-of-concept test, NASA reported on Aug. 4, 2026. The results were presented that Tuesday at the Committee on Space Research Scientific Meeting and were under review at the journal Space Weather.

For the test, researchers retroactively used data from a coronal mass ejection that left the Sun on May 31, 2025. Twelve hours after the eruption, their model settled on a prediction that the storm would arrive eight hours later; the predicted arrival proved accurate to within a half hour, which NASA described as 10 times better than current methods that provide a 5-hour window. PUNCH, launched in 2025, uses four spacecraft in low Earth orbit to make continuous 3D observations, capturing a new image every four minutes.

Craig DeForest, PUNCH principal investigator at Southwest Research Institute, said the team accomplished an order of magnitude better result with a basic process informed by continuous tracking. The wide-field images also revealed that coronal mass ejection clouds are clumpier than previously thought. Southwest Research Institute leads the mission and operates the spacecraft from Boulder, Colorado; NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center manages it.