Introduction

What is PUNCH?

PUNCH is a NASA Small Explorer (SMEX) mission to better understand how the mass and energy of the Sun’s corona become the solar wind that fills the solar system. Four suitcase-sized satellites will work together to produce images of the entire inner solar system around the clock. You can learn more at the PUNCH website.

Where does simpunch fit in?

simpunch is a framework for generating synthetic PUNCH data, a useful for testing the science reduction pipeline during development. We are opening this code as a tool for the scientific community for generating synthetic datasets from model outputs. This can prove useful for comparisons of actual PUNCH observations with simulated model data.

PUNCH and Python

The PUNCH framework is built using Python - an object-oriented language with a large user / code base in astronomy and solar physics. The pipeline and tools for querying / loading PUNCH data use the Python language, along with the SunPy and Astropy software libraries. A number of useful tutorials exist online, including the official Python tutorial and the Hitchhiker’s Guide to Python.

In addition to scripts and modules, Python notebooks provide a great way to execute and document a sequence of code cells, with visualizations directly in-line. It’s a sort of analogue of the classic research notebook. The SunPy example gallery provides a great series of example notebooks, which are an additional great tool for learning Python.