Vandenberg Space Force Base, California – A new NASA observatory, the SPHEREx mission, was successfully launched into space on Tuesday, with a mission to explore and understand the origins of the universe moments after the Big Bang. The spacecraft, named the Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer, aims to map the entire celestial sky, studying millions of galaxies to uncover the formation and evolution of the universe.
The launch of the $488 million SPHEREx observatory had been delayed multiple times since late February, but finally took off aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California at approximately 8:10 p.m. PT. Along with SPHEREx, four small satellites were also deployed for a separate mission to study the sun.
Utilizing advanced infrared technology, SPHEREx will survey the sky four times during its two-year mission, observing the cosmos in 102 different colors or wavelengths. This will provide scientists with more detailed information about the composition, density, temperature, and chemical makeup of stars, galaxies, and other celestial objects in the universe.
Infrared light, which is invisible to the human eye, serves as a key source of information in space, offering valuable insights into the characteristics and origins of galaxies. By using spectroscopy to analyze infrared light, researchers will be able to gain a deeper understanding of the chemistry and unique traits of hundreds of millions of galaxies throughout the universe.
The data collected by the SPHEREx observatory has the potential to revolutionize our knowledge of how galaxies are formed, the origins of water in our own Milky Way, and shed light on the events that unfolded after the Big Bang, billions of years ago. This groundbreaking mission represents a significant step forward in our quest to unravel the mysteries of the cosmos and understand the forces that shaped our universe.