Introduction to SPHEREx

NASA's SPHEREx space telescope was launched into orbit by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on March 12. The telescope is designed to create a 3D map of the entire celestial sky, capturing images of over 450 million galaxies and 100 million stars in the Milky Way.

The SPHEREx observatory will remain in low Earth orbit, where it will maintain a position relative to the sun that will remain the same throughout the year. Every 98-minute orbit, the observatory will view a 360-degree strip of the sky in both optical and near-infrared light.

Mapping the Celestial Sky

The telescope will capture more 360-degree strips as the Earth moves around the sun, enabling it to map the entire celestial sky within six months. SPHEREx was designed to image the entire sky every six months in two years, with its goal being to create a 3D map of the universe.

The telescope will also image and gather information on over 100 million stars in the Milky Way. SPHEREx's map is bound to be colorful, as it will separate infrared light emitted by the stars and galaxies into 102 individual colors using a technique called spectroscopy.

Scientific Objectives

The data SPHEREx provides will give scientists information about what happened right after the Big Bang and could provide evidence of cosmic inflation, or the rapid expansion of the early universe. SPHEREx will shed its telescope lens' protective cover in four days and will start its science operations in a little over a month once its temperature has cooled down.

Meanwhile, the four PUNCH satellites, which will also take on a Sun-synchronous orbit, will map the sun's corona by taking polarized white-light images of the celestial object. It will gather data to help us better understand how the corona turns into solar wind, which could lead to accurate predictions of space weather events affecting spacecraft orbiting the Earth.