SPHEREx Telescope

NASA’s SPHEREx telescope, set to launch on February 27, 2025 from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

• The mission will launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
• SPHEREx stands for Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx).
• SPHEREx’s main goal is to search for the fundamentals of life — water and organic matter within the Milky Way.
• The telescope will take 600 images daily, completing four full sky scans in 27 months.
• SPHEREx will map 450 million galaxies, revealing how the universe evolved after the Big Bang.
• It will also study 100 million Milky Way stars, tracing life’s building blocks in space.
• This new mission will complement the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)by offering a comprehensive all-sky survey in infrared light. SPHEREx will collect data across 102 different infrared colours.
• SPHEREx is designed to survey the entire sky, Unlike JWST, which focuses on specific targets.