On January 6th, NASA announced that the $250 million SPHEREx telescope (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) is set to be launched in either 2024 or 2025.
The shape of the SPHEREx telescope. Image: NASA.
The SPHEREx telescope has three primary objectives. Its first goal is to seek evidence of the Big Bang and map the galaxies originating from the universe’s expansion, thereby providing physicists with additional insights into the universe’s formation.
The second objective of SPHEREx is to study faint emissions from all galaxies in the universe to understand how they came into existence. However, the most crucial goal is to locate frozen water and exotic organic molecules, aiding researchers in exploring whether materials conducive to life are prevalent in other celestial bodies and whether extraterrestrial life could develop elsewhere.
As per the plan, SPHEREx is scheduled to launch in either June 2024 or April 2025, with a two-year mission duration. During this period, the instrument will map the entire sky four times using spectroscopy, breaking down near-infrared light into various wavelengths to detect the shape or composition of materials. This technique has been previously employed by researchers to discover asteroids worth trillions of dollars.
The maps generated from SPHEREx’s data will also help estimate the distance between objects and Earth, according to Allen Farrington, the project manager of SPHEREx at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Experts in the project spent 29 months crafting the components before entering the next phase of testing and launch. The construction cost of SPHEREx reached nearly $250 million, as estimated when the project was announced in 2019.