Published on Mar. 13, 2025, 6:54 PM
SPHEREx will survey hundreds of millions of galaxies, as well as search the Milky Way for water and organic molecules essentials for life as we know it.
NASA's newest space telescope has launched into orbit on a mission to unlock some of the deepest mysteries of our universe.
Late Tuesday evening, the southern California coastline was lit up by the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, bound for Earth orbit. Perched atop that rocket were two new NASA missions — one to study the origins of the solar wind, named PUNCH, and another to help unlock the very secrets of the cosmos, called SPHEREx.
SPHEREx in orbit - March 11 2025 - NASA SpaceX
NASA's new SPHEREx telescope is shown in the centre of the field of view, just moments after it was released into orbit by the Falcon 9 second stage, on March 11, 2025. The terminator between day and night is in the background. (NASA TV)
The Spectro-Photometer for the History of the universe, Epoch of Reionization and ices Explorer (SPHEREx) is a new infrared telescope that will orbit around Earth's poles every 100 minutes or so, continuously scanning the celestial sphere around our planet with a heat-sensing camera that serves a dual purpose.
Every six months of its initial two-year mission, SPHEREx will generate a complete three-dimensional map of the universe in the highest colour resolution ever captured, out to a distance of 10 billion light year away. This will produce a survey of hundreds of millions of galaxies, in an effort to study the phenomenon known as inflation — the sudden trillion-trillionfold expansion of the universe in the moments just after the Big Bang.
SPHEREx Mission Graphic NASA JPL
This graphic shows how SPHEREx will operate. The telescope (shown bottom left, inset) will scan in 102 colour bands (shown bottom right), constructing a full spherical map of the universe around the planet (shown nearly completed, top right). NASA/JPL-Caltech/Scott Sutherland)
According to NASA: "This nearly instantaneous event left an impression on the large-scale distribution of matter in the universe. The mission will map the distribution of more than 450 million galaxies to improve scientists' understanding of the physics behind this extreme cosmic event."
Meanwhile, in the proces of constructing each of the four maps of the universe it will produce, SPHEREx will be scanning outward through the Milky Way. Thus, its maps will also capture the 100 million stars that call our galaxy home, and astronomers can use that information to search for frozen water, and for organic molecules that are crucial for the development of life as we know it.