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What just happened? NASA’s latest observatory is preparing for a two-year mission to create a 3D map of the entire celestial sky. SPHEREx, which is short for Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer, launched into space aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that left Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 8:10 pm Pacific on March 11.
Following a checkout period lasting one month, the observatory – which measures 8.5 feet tall, 10.5 feet across, and weighs 1,107 pounds – will capture a full 3D map of over 450 million galaxies once every six months for two years. Using a technique called spectroscopy, SPHEREx will split infrared light emitted by stars and galaxies into 102 individual colors. The resulting imagery is likely to be both visually stunning and immensely helpful, as color analysis can reveal details about a source including its composition and distance from Earth.
NASA said the mission will also measure the total collective glow of all of the galaxies in the entire universe and help provide insight into how galaxies form over time. Furthermore, it will search our own Milky Way galaxy for signs of carbon dioxide, water, and other basic ingredients that serve as the building blocks for life as we know it.
View of @NASA‘s SPHEREx and Earth shortly after deployment pic.twitter.com/TT2pyVX43Q
– SpaceX (@SpaceX) March 12, 2025
SPHEREx’s survey will build on the work of other telescopes that have mapped smaller sections of the sky in greater detail, such as Hubble and James Webb.
A collection of four small satellites also hitched a ride to space alongside SPHEREx on the SpaceX rocket. Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere, or PUNCH for short, will study the inner solar system as well as the Sun’s outer atmosphere, the corona, to better understand how its mass and energy transform into solar wind.
Craig DeForest, principal investigator for the mission at the Southwest Research Institute, said the space between planets is not an empty void. Rather, it is full of turbulent solar wind that washes over Earth. “The PUNCH mission is designed to answer basic questions about how stars like our Sun produce stellar winds, and how they give rise to dangerous space weather events right here on Earth,” DeForest added.
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