NASA launches SPHEREx telescope into orbit with SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket

NASA's SPHEREx telescope has left Earth aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from a launch pad in California. SPHEREx separated from the SpaceX spacecraft at 12 a.m. Eastern Time (ET) on March 12 and will remain in low Earth orbit, where it will maintain its position relative to the Sun, Engadget reports.

Every 98 minutes, the telescope will be able to capture a 360-degree swath of the sky in both optical and near-infrared light, allowing it to map the entire celestial sky over a period of six months.

SPHEREx was designed to survey the entire sky every six months for two years, with the goal of building a 3D map of over 450 million galaxies. In addition, the telescope will collect data on over 100 million stars in the Milky Way.

The resulting SPHEREx map will be in color: The telescope will separate infrared light emitted by stars and galaxies into 102 individual colors using a method called spectroscopy. NASA likens it to how "a prism breaks sunlight into a rainbow."

The space agency explained that observing objects in different spectra will allow them to determine their characteristics, including composition. For galaxies, colors can help scientists estimate their distance from Earth. Data from SPHEREx will provide scientists with information about events that occurred immediately after the Big Bang, and could provide evidence for cosmic inflation, or the rapid expansion of the early universe.

Meanwhile, four PUNCH satellites, also in sun-synchronous orbit, will map the solar corona by taking polarized images. They will collect data that will help understand the process of the corona's conversion to solar wind, which could help predict space weather events that affect spacecraft in Earth orbit.