NASA's 'Spherex' Telescope Launched to Study the Origin of the Universe

On Tuesday, March 12, a NASA telescope was launched into space from California, tasked with discovering the origin of the universe and searching the Milky Way galaxy for hidden water sources, a key element for life. This telescope, shaped like a handheld speaker, was launched by SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. Named 'Spherex', it will collect data from over 450 million galaxies and more than 100 million stars in the Milky Way during its two-year mission, creating a three-dimensional map of the universe in 102 colors – separate wavelengths of light. The mission aims to deepen human understanding of a phenomenon known as 'cosmic inflation', which refers to the rapid and exponential expansion of the universe from a point in a fraction of a second after the Big Bang that occurred nearly 13.8 billion years ago. Phil Korngut, an instrument scientist for 'Spherex' at the California Institute of Technology, states, 'Spherex aims to achieve the origin of the universe; something that occurred in those initial moments after the Big Bang. The prevailing theory in this regard is the inflation theory, which suggests that the universe expanded from a size smaller than an atom to a trillion trillion times its size in a fraction of a second.' Sean Domagal-Goldman, head of astrophysics at NASA headquarters, mentions that 'Spherex' is searching for 'echoes of the Big Bang – a fraction of a second after the Big Bang – in areas it is set to observe directly.' 'Spherex' takes pictures from all directions around the Earth and decomposes the light from billions of cosmic sources like stars and galaxies into their constituent wavelengths to determine their composition and distance from Earth. Within the Milky Way galaxy, 'Spherex' is searching for frozen water reservoirs and molecules – including carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide – on the surface of interstellar dust grains that form stars and planets. Scientists believe that icy reservoirs attached to dust grains in large clouds of gas and dust are where most of the universe's water forms and is stored. Alongside 'Spherex', a set of four suitcase-sized satellites for another NASA mission called 'PUNCH' will be launched, aimed at observing the Sun and its environment. The goal of this mission is to better understand how solar wind (a continuous stream of charged particles from the Sun) forms and impacts. Solar wind and other energetic solar events can affect space weather, impacting human technologies, including interference with satellites and power outages. Nicoline Vial, a scientist for the 'PUNCH' mission from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, states, 'Together, they will piece together a three-dimensional view of the solar corona – the Sun's atmosphere – as it transforms into solar wind, filling the entire solar system.'