SPHEREx telescope now operational—How NASA will map the entire universe
What's the story
NASA's SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) has taken its first images from space.
Launched on March 11, SPHEREx will map millions of galaxies across the whole sky.
Each of the telescope's six detectors took one image each, confirming that all systems are working as expected.
SPHEREx will map the entire celestial sky four times during its two-year mission.
Cosmic panorama
Each image to contain over 100,000 stars and galaxies
"Our spacecraft has opened its eyes on the universe," said Olivier Doré, SPHEREx project scientist at Caltech and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "It's performing just as it was designed to."
The first images from SPHEREx, albeit uncalibrated and not ready for scientific use.
"Each bright spot is a source of light, like a star or galaxy, and each image is expected to contain more than 100,000 detected sources," said NASA in a blog post.
Cosmic scope
SPHEREx will capture some 600 images every day
SPHEREx's full field of view is nearly 20 times wider than the full moon.
The observatory will capture some 600 exposures every day when it starts routine science operations in late April.
"Where telescopes like NASA's Hubble and James Webb space telescopes were designed to target small areas of space in detail, SPHEREx is a survey telescope and takes a broad view," said NASA.
Infrared exploration
SPHEREx's unique detection capabilities
SPHEREx is designed to detect infrared light, which the human eye cannot see. To create its first images, scientists assigned visible colors to different infrared wavelengths captured by the observatory.
Each of its six detectors records 17 distinct wavelength bands, producing 102 unique hues per six-image exposure.
This technique helps determine an object's composition or distance within a galaxy.
By combining SPHEREx data with insights from Hubble and JWST, scientists aim to deepen their understanding of the universe.
Cosmic mapping
SPHEREx's mission and data analysis
The SPHEREx mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Astrophysics Division within the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. BAE Systems (formerly Ball Aerospace) built the telescope and spacecraft bus.
A team of scientists from 10 US institutions, two in South Korea, and one in Taiwan will conduct the science analysis of the SPHEREx data.
The dataset will be publicly available at the NASA-IPAC Infrared Science Archive.