Spherex taking off on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Image: SpaceX
Spherex will use spectrography to measure the distance to 450m galaxies in the nearby universe.
A new NASA astrophysics telescope is on its way to study the origins of our universe and search for the “ingredients of life” in our galaxy.
Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionisation and Ices Explorer, or Spherex for short, lifted off aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket yesterday (11 March) from California.
Once it clears its one-month mark in good condition, the telescope will commence a two-year mission investigating some of humanity’s biggest questions. To achieve this, Spherex will create a 3D map of the entire celestial sky every six months, providing a wide perspective of space.
The telescope will use spectroscopy, a technology that can analyse objects and materials based on patterns of colour, or wavelenths, to measure the distance to 450m galaxies in the nearby universe.
A cosmic event called ‘inflation’, which took place a “fraction of a second” after the Big Bang 14bn years ago, “subtly influenced” the galaxy distribution, said NASA. The mission also will measure the total collective glow of all the galaxies in the universe, shining more light on how galaxies have formed and evolved over cosmic time.
Artist’s concept of Spherex in Earth orbit. Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Moreover, spectroscopy will reveal what cosmic objects are made of which Spherex will use in the Milky Way to search for hidden reservoirs of frozen water ice and other molecules essential to life as we know it.
Spherex’s work will complement the images captured by space telescopes that focus on smaller sections of the sky, but in more detail, such as the James Webb Space Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope, said NASA.
“Questions like ‘how did we get here?’ and ‘are we alone?’ have been asked by humans for all of history,” said James Fanson, the Spherex project manager at JPL, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“I think it’s incredible that we are alive at a time when we have the scientific tools to actually start to answer them.”
Laurie Leshin, the director of NASA JPL, said that the Spherex team based in California kept the mission on track even as the recent southern Californian wildfires destroyed parts of the state. This “is a testament to their remarkable commitment to deepening humanity’s understanding of our universe”, she said.
Moreover, alongside Spherex were four small satellites aboard the Falcon 9 that make up NASA’s Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (Punch) mission, which will study how the sun’s outer atmosphere becomes 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, the associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA headquarters in Washington.
Both missions are designed to operate in low Earth in a sun-synchronous orbit, an orbit where the sun remains in the same positive relative to the spacecraft.
Punch will make 3D observations of the inner solar system and the sun’s outer atmosphere – the corona – to learn how its mass and energy become the solar wind.
The solar wind continuously flows out from the sun and consists mainly of plasma, a stream of charged particles. This plasma interacts with Earth’s magnetic field to create auroras, commonly seen in the skies near Earth’s poles.
Moreover, the Punch mission will explore the formation and evolution of space weather events such as coronal mass ejections, which can create storms of energetic particle radiation that threaten the safety of spacecraft and astronauts.
“The space between planets is not an empty void. It’s full of turbulent solar wind that washes over Earth,” said Craig DeForest, the mission’s principal investigator at the Southwest Research Institute.
“The Punch mission is designed to answer basic questions about how stars like our sun produce stellar winds, and how they give rise to dangerous space weather events right here on Earth.”
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