NASA launches 'incredible' new tools into space to study the universe, sun's corona
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NASA's advanced space observatory known as SPHEREx is on its cosmic journey to solve some of the universe's biggest mysteries.
The space telescope, which NASA has spent years developing, launched Tuesday night from California following weeks of delays. A seperate NASA mission to study the sun also launched with SPHEREx on the same SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
In the weeks ahead, SPHEREx will begin its two-year mission to scour hundreds of millions of galaxies and more than 100 million stars in the Milky Way.
It's objective? Discover secrets about how the known universe came to be and find signs of life elsewhere in our galaxy.
More on the SPHEREx mission: A fancy new telescope is heading to space to study the universe
The telescope got off the ground at at 8:10 p.m. PDT Tuesday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
The space observatory shared a ride with the four small satellites that make up NASA’s PUNCH mission, which will study how the sun's outer atmosphere becomes solar wind.
The two missions are designed to operate in low-Earth orbit in such a way that the sun always remains in the same position relative to each spacecraft. This is essential for SPHEREx to keep its telescope shielded from the sun’s light and heat, which would inhibit its observations, and for PUNCH to have a clear view in all directions around the sun, according to NASA.
Ground controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which manages SPHEREx, established communications with the space observatory at 9:31 p.m. PDT. The observatory will begin its two-year mission in about one month after engineers and scientists make sure the spacecraft is working properly.
'Sending both SPHEREx and PUNCH up on a single rocket doubles the opportunities to do incredible science in space,” NASA Associate Administrator Nicky Fox of the Science Mission Directorate said in a statement. “Congratulations to both mission teams as they explore the cosmos from far-out galaxies to our neighborhood star. I am excited to see the data returned in the years to come.”
SPHEREx, short for Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer, was developed by NASA for a mission to uncover some of the universe's greatest mysteries.
The advanced observatory, an 8½ foot-tall cone-shaped telescope with infrared capabilities, will create a 3D map of the entire celestial sky every six months.
SPHEREx will also use a technique called spectroscopy to measure the distance to 450 million galaxies in the nearby universe. Astronomers theorize that the distribution of the galaxies was influenced by a universe-expanding event that took place almost 14 billion years ago after the big bang.
During its mission, the telescope will also measure the glow of all the galaxies in the universe, which should provide new insights into how galaxies formed and evolved over cosmic time.
But the mission isn't only studying faraway galaxies. SPHEREx will also turn its attention to our Milky Way to search for hidden reservoirs of frozen water ice and other molecules, like carbon dioxide, that are essential to life as we know it.
“Questions like ‘How did we get here?’ and ‘Are we alone?’ have been asked by humans for all of history,” James Fanson, project manager of SPHEREx, said in a statement. “I think it’s incredible that we are alive at a time when we have the scientific tools to actually start to answer them.”
During its two-year mission, the four satellites of PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) will study the sun’s outer atmosphere, the corona, to determine how it transitions into the stream of charged particles known as solar wind.
To do this, the satellites will make 3D observations of both the inner solar system and the corona to learn how its mass and energy become solar wind blowing outward in all directions. The mission will also study space weather events like coronal mass ejections, which can create geomagnetic storms that can endanger spacecraft and astronauts – and reveal the northern lights on Earth.
PUNCH's insights could lead to more accurate prediction about the arrival and impact of space weather events on Earth, NASA says.
NASA believes SPHEREx could complement the famous Hubble and James Webb space telescopes, which have for years already been studying the far corners of the known universe.
Hubble and Webb specialize in zooming in on small areas in great detail, unveiling planets, stars and galaxies in high resolution. But some questions "can be answered only by looking at the big picture," according to NASA.
That's where SPHEREx comes in.
The new telescope could help fill in the gap by getting a wider view of the galaxy – identifying objects of scientific interest that telescopes like Hubble and Webb can then go study up close. The result would provide scientists with a more complete perspective of the universe, according to NASA.
Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at [email protected]
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: NASA launches SPHEREx telescope, PUNCH satellites: What they're doing
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