NASA is set to launch its latest space telescope, the Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx), on a SpaceX rocket from California. The mission aims to better understand what happened immediately after the Big Bang and search for water in the Milky Way.
Scheduled to be launched on Friday, SPHEREx will create a three-dimensional map of the cosmos using data from over 450 million galaxies and 100 million stars. The telescope will study the origins of the universe and cosmic inflation, which occurred about 13.8 billion years ago.
Cosmologist Olivier Dore explained that while evidence suggests cosmic inflation occurred, its physics are uncertain. By mapping galaxy distribution and studying light spectra, SPHEREx can directly constrain unique properties of inflation. The mission also aims to find reservoirs of water frozen on interstellar dust grains in molecular clouds, crucial for understanding the origin of life.
SPHEREx will split light from billions of cosmic sources into their component wavelengths to determine composition and distance. It will also measure the collective glow of light between galaxies. Launched along with SPHEREx is a constellation of satellites for NASA’s PUNCH mission to study the sun’s corona.
The launch marks an unprecedented dataset, which scientists believe will lead to new discoveries about cosmic phenomena. As Dore said, “Every time we look at the sky in a new way or from a different angle, we discover new phenomena.”
Source: https://www.reuters.com/science/nasas-spherex-space-telescope-explore-what-happened-right-after-big-bang-2025-02-25