Unveiling the Cosmos: SPHEREx's Colorful Sky Map

A New Eye on the Cosmos

In 2025, NASA's SPHEREx telescope launched aboard a SpaceX rocket from California. By May, it was already hard at work collecting data. This telescope is unique because it captures images in infrared light, a spectrum invisible to the human eye. It's like seeing the universe in an entirely new way!

What is SPHEREx?

SPHEREx stands for Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization, and Ices Explorer. It's designed to study the history of the universe. Orbiting Earth rapidly, it takes snapshots of the sky. Over six months, it scans the entire sky, capturing data in 102 different infrared wavelengths.

This is similar to what the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) does, but SPHEREx covers a much wider area.

A New Sky Map

The new sky map from SPHEREx reveals cosmic objects emitting light at different wavelengths:

• Hot hydrogen gas appears blue.
• Cosmic dust appears red.
• Stars show in combinations of blue, green, and white.

This reveals details that regular telescopes cannot see.

SPHEREx vs. James Webb Space Telescope

While JWST focuses on small patches of the sky with high resolution, SPHEREx scans the entire sky quickly. It's like having 102 new maps of the sky, each with unique information. Over its two-year mission, SPHEREx will repeat its surveys to gather more data.

Exploring the Early Universe

One of SPHEREx's key goals is to study the early universe. It aims to create a 3D map of hundreds of millions of galaxies to understand how the universe's structure formed. Additionally, it will examine interstellar clouds to learn about the ingredients for life. This could help us understand how life began and where it might exist.