The mission will make us understand how the universe expanded rapidly immediately after the big bang took place.
The data collected by the space observatory will result in a 3D map of the sky, making it the first NASA mission to create a spectroscopy map in the sky. The name “SPHEREx” is an abbreviation for Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer.
The space observatory, which will be similar to a sub-compact car, is expected to start between June 2024 and April 2025.
The tracking of countless galaxies and stars
The instruments on SPHEREx will detect the air in visible light as well as near-infrared light. The human eye cannot see near-infrared light, but it has helped astronomers look at invisible aspects of space and learn more about the universe.
Its instruments will use spectroscopy to separate the near-infrared light that the telescope can see into individual wavelengths. This data can shed light on the composition of an object or even its distance from the earth.
“It’s like going from black and white images to color; it’s like going from Kansas to Oz,” Allen Farrington, the SPHEREx project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a statement. .
Scientists expect to collect data on more than 300 million nearby and distant galaxies – some of which are so far away that it took 10 billion years before their light reached Earth.
The telescope will also detect more than 100 million stars in our Milky Way galaxy while searching for water ice and other organic molecules in star nurseries and areas around stars where new planets could form. These stellar birthplaces, where stars come together from gas and dust, can contain evidence of the ingredients for life.
At the end of the mission, astronomers expect to have, according to the agency, a map of the entire sky that exceeds the resolution of previous similar maps.
The SPHEREx Space Telescope can also identify objects of interest to other NASA missions to observe with more detail.
Clues of new star formations
The mission team has some specific goals in mind for SPHEREx.
The scientists will search for a fraction of a second after the big bang for evidence of the inflation of the universe, when space, as we know it, expanded rapidly. It would have changed how the case was spread. Evidence of inflation may exist in the patterns and position of galaxies around the universe.
Astronomers also want to know more about the history of how galaxies formed, including the first stars to form after the Big Bang. Galaxies emit a dim glow. This glow varies across space depending on the location of galaxies, as some of them tend to stay in groups called clusters. Maps created by SPHEREx that refract light into different color bands can reveal more information about the first galaxies that formed stars.
By taking a closer look at new stars in the Milky Way, astronomers will also be able to learn more about how young planetary systems are created. Planets form the remnants of stellar creation – essentially slides of gas, dust and ice that collapse. That remaining ice can actually bring water and other organic molecules to planets, just like the way water was delivered to the early earth.
It will tell scientists whether our planetary system, which is Earth or its ability to sustain life, is common or scarce.
Final design and composition
NASA officials announced this week that the mission has entered Phase C, which means that the early design plans have been approved and that teams can start with the final design and assemble hardware and software. The California Institute of Technology and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory will develop the instruments on SPHEREx while the spacecraft itself will be built by Ball Aerospace.
The SPHEREx team will spend the next 29 months building these components before embarking on the next mission phase: assembly, testing and launch.