An early, preliminary design for SPHEREx.
NASA / JPL-Caltech
The big bang theory is a cosmological model that describes how our present, observable universe came into being. But there is still a lot to learn about the concept, especially when it comes to the early microseconds after the big bang itself. What happened in that second when our universe appeared? NASA wants to find out.
To do this, the space agency has designed a space telescope that can examine the universe for evidence of the earliest moments.
Currently wearing the extremely cool moniker SPHEREx (abbreviation for “Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer”) NASA has announced that it will work closely with its plan to build the telescope.
Next steps: Start with the final design and start building the thing, with a view to starting between 2024 and 2025.
The SPHEREx Space Telescope is expected to be the size of a ‘sub-compact car’ and, according to a recent release from NASA, will map the entire sky four times and provide a massive database of stars, galaxies, nebulae (clouds of gas and dust in space), and many other celestial objects. “
If all goes according to plan, SPHEREx will be the very first NASA mission to create a ‘full-sky near-infrared spectroscopy map’, with a total of 102 near-infrared colors.
“It’s like going from black and white images to color,” explained Allen Farrington, project manager at SPHEREx.
SPHEREx’s first priority is to search for evidence for something NASA says ‘possibly less than a billionth of a billionth of a second after the big bang’ happened.
By mapping billions of galaxies across the universe, NASA hopes to find statistical patterns that can help explain what happened immediately after the Big Bang, when the universe expanded rapidly. The newly created map will also help search for ice and frozen organic molecules around newly formed stars.
SPHEREx also hopes to discover more about galaxies and may discover how some of the first galaxies created stars.
You can find out more about the SPHEREx mission here.