Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️
@craig.deforest.org
Dad, mountaineer, heliophysicist. I lead the PUNCH space mission and direct a team at SwRI. I like science, space, communication, humans, dogs, horses, puns. Lowering barriers and promoting open science are priorities. My personal account; my opinions.
Pinned
Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️
@craig.deforest.org
· Nov 20
I do heliophysics professionally, and geek about many subjects on my own time. Knowledge is power — it's also fun to create, have, and share. I run a #heliophysics feed on BSky. Elsewhere I lead the PUNCH mission to observe the #corona and #solarwind. Ask me anything, I'll probably have an answer.
We had a great time when my son and his girlfriend came to visit over the holidays. Encountered a little turbulence in downtown Denver. #train #turbulence #illusions
January 14, 2026 at 6:29 PM
We had a great time when my son and his girlfriend came to visit over the holidays. Encountered a little turbulence in downtown Denver. #train #turbulence #illusions
Congratulations, @mathewjowens.bsky.social! Many thanks (again) for your longstanding support of #heliophysics!
Congratulations from the #SolarPhysics journal to our long-time Associate Editor @mathewjowens.bsky.social — well deserved!
The Chapman Medal has been awarded to Professor Mathew Owens, of the @uniofreading.bsky.social. 👏
The medal recognises investigations of outstanding merit in the science of the Sun, space and planetary environments or solar-terrestrial physics.
⤵️
The medal recognises investigations of outstanding merit in the science of the Sun, space and planetary environments or solar-terrestrial physics.
⤵️
January 9, 2026 at 7:06 PM
Congratulations, @mathewjowens.bsky.social! Many thanks (again) for your longstanding support of #heliophysics!
IKR? Suddenly proper coiling technique becomes verrrry important!
January 9, 2026 at 5:22 PM
IKR? Suddenly proper coiling technique becomes verrrry important!
Technology quietly advances on all fronts. As a boy scout I carried 50ft of 300lb nylon paracord (~the size of a corn dog) in my pack: much better than bulky hemp rope. Today I carry 100ft of 500lb test kevlar line in my breast pocket - the size of a pack of gum. What's amazing is it's NBD to get.
9KM DWLIFE Kevlar Kite String, 500lb 300Ft, Braided Kevlar Line, Low Stretch, High Strength, Heavy Duty, Fishing Assist Cord, Camping, Hiking, Outdoor Survival Rope
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www.amazon.com
January 9, 2026 at 4:57 PM
Technology quietly advances on all fronts. As a boy scout I carried 50ft of 300lb nylon paracord (~the size of a corn dog) in my pack: much better than bulky hemp rope. Today I carry 100ft of 500lb test kevlar line in my breast pocket - the size of a pack of gum. What's amazing is it's NBD to get.
Hi, Mike. I added you to the subscribers list!
December 27, 2025 at 2:37 AM
Hi, Mike. I added you to the subscribers list!
Yes you did! You are (still) in!
December 22, 2025 at 1:44 AM
Yes you did! You are (still) in!
Yes. Probably next week.
December 18, 2025 at 11:17 PM
Yes. Probably next week.
PUNCH sees the noontime sky as you've never seen it before! ☀️🔭🛰️🧪
NASA’S PUNCH Releases Refined Images of Eruptions from Sun
NASA’s PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) mission has released processed images of huge eruptions from the Sun, known as coronal mass
science.nasa.gov
December 18, 2025 at 9:31 PM
PUNCH sees the noontime sky as you've never seen it before! ☀️🔭🛰️🧪
Here's a release that came out of @swri.org this morning. You'll want to click through and see our awesome movies of the inner solar system! We just presented them at the #AGU2025 meeting this morning. 🧪🛰️🔭☀️
SwRI-led PUNCH mission producing unprecedented images of Sun | Southwest Research Institute
NASA spacecraft also tracks space weather events, comets and more
www.swri.org
December 16, 2025 at 5:29 PM
This morning I had the singular pleasure of visiting the Lake Ponchartrain causeway (world's longest over-water causeway, I'm told) and examining it with binoculars. It was a cloudy, blustery day but I can confirm that, yes, the world is round.
December 15, 2025 at 5:24 AM
This morning I had the singular pleasure of visiting the Lake Ponchartrain causeway (world's longest over-water causeway, I'm told) and examining it with binoculars. It was a cloudy, blustery day but I can confirm that, yes, the world is round.
Hmmm. That one has a greater degree of variation in both direction and brightness — some of the fragments are clearly rotating as they move. But I agree that makes MLI impact look more plausible.
December 13, 2025 at 7:02 PM
Hmmm. That one has a greater degree of variation in both direction and brightness — some of the fragments are clearly rotating as they move. But I agree that makes MLI impact look more plausible.
Wow! Definitely not a detector artifact, and also probably not a soho impact (those tend to make curved streaks). Passing Geminid is a good working hypothesis.
December 13, 2025 at 3:17 PM
Wow! Definitely not a detector artifact, and also probably not a soho impact (those tend to make curved streaks). Passing Geminid is a good working hypothesis.
This is one of many reasons we launched the PUNCH mission (punch.space.swri.edu), which is studying whether we can track "Stealth" CMEs across the void between planets. ☀️🔭🛰️🧪
December 10, 2025 at 3:20 PM
This is one of many reasons we launched the PUNCH mission (punch.space.swri.edu), which is studying whether we can track "Stealth" CMEs across the void between planets. ☀️🔭🛰️🧪
Awesome! Yes, people used to think *flares* directly cause geomagnetic storms – maybe via a blast wave from the explosion on the Sun. Jack Gosling's 1993 paper "The Solar Flare Myth" debunked that and showed that something else (CMEs) causes them. agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...
The solar flare myth
Many years of research have demonstrated that large, nonrecurrent geomagnetic storms, shock wave disturbances in the solar wind, and energetic particle events in interplanetary space often occur in c....
agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
December 10, 2025 at 1:33 AM
Awesome! Yes, people used to think *flares* directly cause geomagnetic storms – maybe via a blast wave from the explosion on the Sun. Jack Gosling's 1993 paper "The Solar Flare Myth" debunked that and showed that something else (CMEs) causes them. agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...
Here's a little more info on the @swri.org team that tracked 3I/ATLAS using @punch-mission.bsky.social data! ☀️🔭🧪🛰️🚀
SwRI researchers use PUNCH to track interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS | Southwest Research Institute
SwRI-led spacecraft provides vital data while 3I/ATLAS is too close to the Sun for others to observe
www.swri.org
December 8, 2025 at 4:46 PM
Here's a little more info on the @swri.org team that tracked 3I/ATLAS using @punch-mission.bsky.social data! ☀️🔭🧪🛰️🚀
Answer: they did issue a warning. Story linked. www.swpc.noaa.gov/news/space-w...
Space Weather Story of the Week (2-5 Dec) Update | NOAA / NWS Space Weather Prediction Center
www.swpc.noaa.gov
December 6, 2025 at 4:23 AM
Answer: they did issue a warning. Story linked. www.swpc.noaa.gov/news/space-w...
You are registered now — so if you include the “☀️” in your skeet it will get picked up!
December 5, 2025 at 1:45 PM
You are registered now — so if you include the “☀️” in your skeet it will get picked up!
Awesome vid!
I saw this because the #heliophysics feed picked up your keywords -- if you haven't noticed the feed yet, you might like it. If you sign up there, you can post helio content directly to the feed with the sun glyph ("☀️").
bsky.app/profile/did:...
I saw this because the #heliophysics feed picked up your keywords -- if you haven't noticed the feed yet, you might like it. If you sign up there, you can post helio content directly to the feed with the sun glyph ("☀️").
bsky.app/profile/did:...
December 4, 2025 at 5:00 AM
Awesome vid!
I saw this because the #heliophysics feed picked up your keywords -- if you haven't noticed the feed yet, you might like it. If you sign up there, you can post helio content directly to the feed with the sun glyph ("☀️").
bsky.app/profile/did:...
I saw this because the #heliophysics feed picked up your keywords -- if you haven't noticed the feed yet, you might like it. If you sign up there, you can post helio content directly to the feed with the sun glyph ("☀️").
bsky.app/profile/did:...
Here's a fun science nugget from @PUNCH-mission.bsky.social: a colorized polarimetric image of the extended solar corona, with bonus dust trails from a micrometeoroid impact! ☀️🛰️🔭
December 3, 2025 at 9:20 PM
Here's a fun science nugget from @PUNCH-mission.bsky.social: a colorized polarimetric image of the extended solar corona, with bonus dust trails from a micrometeoroid impact! ☀️🛰️🔭
PUNCH @punch-mission.bsky.social found out we are good at comet tracking, even as we calibrate/refine our solar wind imaging pipeline. In the last 3 months, we've tracked 3 notable comets with images every 4 min, around the clock: SWAN, Atlas, and Lemmon. PUNCH data are free to get and use. ☀️🛰️🧪🔭
NASA's PUNCH Tracks Comet Discovered by SOHO Spacecraft - NASA Science
From August to October, NASA’s PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) mission tracked comet 2025 R2 (SWAN) — one of the thousands of comets
science.nasa.gov
December 3, 2025 at 6:02 AM
PUNCH @punch-mission.bsky.social found out we are good at comet tracking, even as we calibrate/refine our solar wind imaging pipeline. In the last 3 months, we've tracked 3 notable comets with images every 4 min, around the clock: SWAN, Atlas, and Lemmon. PUNCH data are free to get and use. ☀️🛰️🧪🔭
"There's something about the outside of a horse that's good for the inside of a man" -- discovering my inner #TeddyRoosevelt. (#horses, #trailriding)
December 1, 2025 at 3:06 AM
"There's something about the outside of a horse that's good for the inside of a man" -- discovering my inner #TeddyRoosevelt. (#horses, #trailriding)
Swiss Dawn from the 61C intercity Bern->Basel. Had a great week at ISSI, participating in the solar eclipse/middle-corona conference by day and PUNCH support by night.
November 21, 2025 at 6:58 AM
Swiss Dawn from the 61C intercity Bern->Basel. Had a great week at ISSI, participating in the solar eclipse/middle-corona conference by day and PUNCH support by night.
Is a dwarf planet a kind of planet? How about "rogue planets" – are they planets?
We find patterns in nature, assign labels, and consider that we have divided nature into distinct classes of object with no ambiguity. But nature is not so tidy.
(BTW, I do not have a PhD in planetary science.)
We find patterns in nature, assign labels, and consider that we have divided nature into distinct classes of object with no ambiguity. But nature is not so tidy.
(BTW, I do not have a PhD in planetary science.)
November 20, 2025 at 8:32 AM
Is a dwarf planet a kind of planet? How about "rogue planets" – are they planets?
We find patterns in nature, assign labels, and consider that we have divided nature into distinct classes of object with no ambiguity. But nature is not so tidy.
(BTW, I do not have a PhD in planetary science.)
We find patterns in nature, assign labels, and consider that we have divided nature into distinct classes of object with no ambiguity. But nature is not so tidy.
(BTW, I do not have a PhD in planetary science.)
Is a taco a kind of sandwich?
November 20, 2025 at 8:14 AM
Is a taco a kind of sandwich?
"To orbit [trans. v]" is to follow an orbit around another object. Hyperbolic orbits are orbits. Ergo, 3I Atlas can be said to orbit the Sun, in at least one useful sense. English is imprecise: people can't even agree on whether a taco is a kind of sandwich. Best to give grace where possible.
November 20, 2025 at 4:21 AM
"To orbit [trans. v]" is to follow an orbit around another object. Hyperbolic orbits are orbits. Ergo, 3I Atlas can be said to orbit the Sun, in at least one useful sense. English is imprecise: people can't even agree on whether a taco is a kind of sandwich. Best to give grace where possible.