A fancy new telescope is heading to space: Here's what SPHEREx will do
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NASA astronauts share the work they do while living on the ISS
NASA Astronauts living on the ISS talk with USA TODAY about the experiments they conduct to help humanity hopefully travel deeper into space.
How did the universe begin? How do planets form and galaxies develop? Could life exist anywhere else in the cosmos?
Cosmic questions that have long eluded astronomers could finally be answered with the launch of an advanced space telescope that NASA has spent years developing. Once in orbit, the instrument known as SPHEREx will begin its complex hunt across hundreds of thousands of galaxies for signs of water that may form oceans on distant planets and moons while creating an intricate three-dimensional celestial map.
The findings it beams back to Earth during its two-year mission could help astronomers solve age-old mysteries, including how life as we know it came to be following the big bang. The space telescope is able to detect more than 100 colors in both optical and near-infrared light which, though not visible to the human eye, serves as a powerful investigatory tool, according to NASA.
'We are the first mission to look at the whole sky in so many colors,' SPHEREx Principal Investigator Jamie Bock said in a statement. 'Whenever astronomers look at the sky in a new way, we can expect discoveries.'
Here are five things to know about SPHEREx mission, including what it is and when it launches.
What is NASA's SPHEREx mission? Telescope to study origins of universe
SPHEREx is an acronym that stands for a mouthful: The Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer.
The mission, though, is much more straightforward: Explore the origins of the universe.
The instrument, which is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, will map the entire celestial sky in 102 infrared colors, illuminating not only our Milky Way, but another 450 million or so galaxies and stars within it. Some galaxies it will observe are so distant that their light has taken 10 billion years to reach Earth.
By surveying the known universe in near-infrared light, the SPHEREx telescope should help astronomers solve some of the oldest astronomical mysteries. Although these colors aren't visible to the human eye, scientists can use the data to learn about the physics that governed the universe less than a second after its birth.
SPHEREx will also scour the Milky Way for signs of water.
Of course, oceans and lakes don't exactly pool up and float freely in space. But scientists believe reservoirs of ice, frozen on the surface of interstellar dust grains, are where most of the water in our universe forms and resides.
Life as we know it wouldn't exist without basic ingredients such as water and carbon dioxide.
For that reason, astronomers will use the mission to search in our own Milky Way galaxy for such life-sustaining ingredients within interstellar molecular clouds of gas where planets and stars form. The observatory is capable of pinpointing the location and number of these icy compounds in our galaxy, giving researchers a better sense of their abundance.
When does the mission launch from California?
SPHEREx is set to launch at 10:09 p.m. EST Friday, Feb. 28 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
The space observatory will share a ride with NASA's PUNCH mission (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere,) which will observe the sun's corona as it transitions into the solar wind.
How to watch SPHEREx launch
Launch coverage will begin on NASA+, the space agency's new streaming service, at 9:15 p.m.
NASA will also provide written updates on its SPHEREx blog.
What is SPHEREx telescope?
At 8-and-a-half-feet tall, the megaphone-shaped observatory is roughly the size of a backyard storage shed.
The infrared telescope and its detectors have a distinct design of three cone-shaped layers of photon shields that allow it to operate at the necessary temperatures of about minus 350 degrees Fahrenheit. The design is meant to protect the spacecraft from the heat of the Earth and the sun so that it can't generate its own infrared glow, which could interfere with the faint light it hopes to detect from cosmic sources.
Beneath the photon shields is a mirrored structure that can direct heat from the instrument into space.
To keep itself cold, SPHEREx relies on an entirely passive cooling system, meaning no electricity or coolants are used while it's operating.
How is SPHEREx different from Webb, Hubble telescopes?
NASA believes SPHEREx could complement the fleet of space telescopes the agency has already deployed to orbit, including the famous Hubble and James Webb telescopes.
Those telescopes have for years zoomed in on the far corners of the known universe, unveiling planets, stars and galaxies in high resolution.
The James Webb Space Telescope, which launched in 2021 far surpassed the abilities of Hubble, which has been in orbit since 1990. What makes Webb special is that the telescope, which orbits the sun – unlike Hubble, which orbits Earth – is outfitted with a gold-coated mirror and powerful infrared instruments that allow it to observe the cosmos like no instrument before.
Hubble and Webb are excellent for checking out small areas in great detail. But some questions "can be answered only by looking at the big picture," according to NASA.
That's where SPHEREx comes in.
The new telescope could help fill in the gap by getting a wider view of the galaxy – identifying objects of scientific interest that telescopes like Hubble and Webb can then go study up close. The result would provide scientists with a more complete perspective of the universe, according to NASA.
'If SPHEREx discovers a particularly intriguing location, Webb can study that target with higher spectral resolving power and in wavelengths that SPHEREx cannot detect,' Gary Melnick, an astronomer on the SPHEREx science team, said in a statement. 'These two telescopes could form a highly effective partnership.'
Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com
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