NASA's SPHEREx mission, set to launch aboard a Falcon 9 rocket, will map the entire sky in unprecedented infrared detail. This all-sky survey will reveal secrets about the history and evolution of galaxies, the birth of stars, and the potential for life in the universe.
An illustration depicts the SPHEREx spacecraft amidst cosmic structures. The craft's conical shape is partially cut away, revealing its interior. This is SPHEREx, an eggshell white probe standing for Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer. Its infrared capabilities are designed to unveil secrets even the groundbreaking James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) can't fully capture.
'What SPHEREx and other survey missions can do is almost like going into panorama mode, when you want to catch a big group of people and the things standing behind or around them,' explained Shawn Domagal-Goldman, acting director of the Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters, on January 31st. SPHEREx isn't flying solo. It's sharing a ride with NASA's PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) mission, a constellation of four small satellites dedicated to studying the sun. Their launch is scheduled aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base in Central California. This Falcon 9 booster has already seen action twice before, on the Transporter 12 mission on January 14th. 'The booster will be applying its phenomenal capacity of returning once again to land in zone four at Vandenberg Space Force Base about eight minutes after launch,' said Cesar Marin, SPHEREx integration engineer for the Launch Services Program at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida during the briefing. Over a period of two years, barring any mission extensions, SPHEREx will chart the cosmos, detecting both optical and infrared light. While optical light is visible to us, infrared light is more akin to a heat signature, invisible to the naked eye. The JWST excels in infrared observation, revealing hidden wonders of the universe. It's the infrared light that carries information about the farthest reaches of space, the birth of stars within dust clouds, and the intricate details of galactic structures, painting a cosmic picture with new colors.While other infrared telescopes like the retired Spitzer Telescope and even Hubble possess some infrared capabilities, none match the JWST's prowess. SPHEREx, however, won't compete with the JWST's ability to scrutinize highly localized regions of the universe confined to the infrared spectrum. Its strength lies in its all-sky survey approach. While the $10 billion JWST is masterful at observing specific nebulas and relatively narrow but vast deep fields, SPHEREx aims to image the entire sky. 'We are literally mapping the entire celestial sky in 102 infrared colors for the first time in humanity's history, and we will see that every six months,' said Nicky Fox, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. 'This has not been done before on this level of color resolution for our old sky maps.' 'In terms of all-sky survey missions,' Jamie Bock, principal investigator of SPHEREx at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, stated during the briefing, 'generally, these have been done in photometry, looking at the sky in broad bands and handfuls of broad bands — not this complete spectrum.' So, what will SPHEREx be seeking out? From its unique dawn-dusk sun-synchronous orbit, which keeps it cool enough to study infrared emissions, the space telescope will essentially map everything in the sky. Its goals are vast: scientists want to study numerous galaxies at various stages of their history, enhancing our understanding of galactic evolution. They aim to peer into the interstellar space between stars, searching for icy organics that could shed light on the origins of life on Earth. 'Shout out to our team at OSIRIS-REx in the Planetary Division,' Domagal-Goldman said. 'They pick up that story and then tell how it traverses in our Scientists also hope to capture three-dimensional views of hundreds of millions of galaxies, deepening our knowledge of cosmic inflation — the theory that posits the universe underwent an explosive expansion moments after its birth. It would be as if a balloon suddenly inflated at an unimaginable speed
Spherex NASA Space Telescope Infrared Astronomy All-Sky Survey Galaxy Evolution Cosmic Inflation Life Origins
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