Authors: Tingyu Gou (CfA), Katharine Reeves (CfA), Daniel Seaton (SwRI), Ritesh Patel (SwRI), Bin Zhuang (UNH)

Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are among the most energetic and powerful eruptions on the Sun. CMEs often experience substantial evolution during their initiation phase before propagating into the higher corona, where they are routinely observed by SOHO/LASCO. The ASPIICS coronagraph aboard the Proba-3 mission provides white-light (WL) observation of the solar corona in the range of ~1.1-3 Rs. The unique height coverage of the middle corona, a region that has been less explored, combined with high-cadence (30s) and high-spatial-resolution (5’’.6) imaging, enables continuous investigation of the formation and early evolution of CMEs from the inner to outer corona.

We present observations of a CME event on July 16, 2025. Taking advantage of the simultaneous, co-spatial EUV and WL imaging, we observe the formation process of the CME in the inner corona and identify multi-thermal structures of the CME in multi-wavelengths. The CME is observed to experience a strong lateral expansion near the Sun. Furthermore, it undergoes significant deformation as it is deflected northward. This dynamic evolution is only observed in the ASPIICS’s field of view, before it appears in LASCO/C2 as an ordinary, narrow CME. We also investigate the complete kinematic evolution by filling the observational gap between the EUV instruments and LASCO, and derive the three-dimensional trajectory of the CME by applying the GCS model fitting. We discuss the effects of the background environment in the source region and the middle corona on the formation and early evolution of the CME.