NASA’s SPHEREx Telescope Launched to Study Universe’s Origins, Detect Water

Four small satellites will also study how the Sun’s outer atmosphere becomes the solar wind.

BAE Systems employees work on NASA’s SPHEREx observatory in the Astrotech Space Operations facility at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, on Jan. 16, 2025. NASA via AP

A NASA space telescope was launched from California on Tuesday on a mission to explore the origins of the universe and detect hidden reservoirs of water.

The SPHEREx telescope was carried into orbit by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base at 11:10 p.m. ET (8:10 p.m. PT).

SPHEREx—short for Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer—will spend the next two years collecting data on more than 450 million galaxies and 100 million stars in the Milky Way to explore the origins of the universe, according to NASA.

As part of its mission, the cone-shaped observatory, which weighs 1,110 pounds (500 kilograms), will search for water, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and other key ingredients for life in stellar nurseries, regions where stars form from gas and dust. It will also search for essential elements in disks around stars where new planets may be forming.

Scientists believe reservoirs of ice bound to dust grains in clouds are where most of the universe’s water forms and can be found.

Also aboard the Falcon 9 were four small satellites comprising NASA’s Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) mission, which will study how the Sun’s outer atmosphere becomes the solar wind.

“Everything in NASA science is interconnected, and sending both SPHEREx and PUNCH up on a single rocket doubles the opportunities to do incredible science in space,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

“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.”

Scientists Seek to Better Understand Cosmic ‘Inflation’

Every six months, the telescope will create a three-dimensional map of the entire celestial sky in 102 different color bands that are invisible to the human eye, providing a wide perspective to complement the work of space telescopes including NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and Hubble Space Telescope.

Those telescopes typically observe smaller sections of the sky in more detail.

Instead of searching for galaxies, SPHEREx will measure the total collective glow of all the galaxies in the universe, providing new information about how galaxies have formed and evolved over cosmic time.

PUNCH will spend two years observing the Sun’s corona as it transitions into the solar wind, helping scientists better understand how the Sun creates conditions that influence Earth and space.

Craig DeForest, principal investigator for the mission at the Southwest Research Institute, said, “The space between planets is not an empty void. It’s full of turbulent solar wind that washes over Earth.”

DeForest said the PUNCH mission will help answer basic questions about how stars such as our Sun produce stellar winds, and how they influence dangerous space weather events on Earth.

NASA said both missions are designed to help scientists better understand a phenomenon known as “inflation,” the rapid expansion of the universe by a trillion-trillionfold in a fraction of a second after the Big Bang nearly 14 billion years ago.

The missions will operate in a “low Earth, Sun-synchronous orbit over the day-night line (also known as the terminator)” meaning the Sun always remains in the same position relative to the spacecraft. This helps ensure the telescope and satellites are shielded from the Sun’s light and heat, NASA said.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.