NASA is launching a $488 million space telescope with a mission to map the universe in an entirely new way.
This breakthrough is to be achieved with the US space agency's latest space telescope, the SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer). Aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, the SPHEREx is set to blast off on Friday (28 February).
Once up there, the $488 million mission will scan the entire sky in 3D, capturing wavelengths that are invisible to the human eye.
Then, over the next two years, it will gather a huge amount of data by studying over 450 million galaxies and 100 million stars in the Milky Way alone.
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According to NASA, the data will include stars that are too small or distant to be seen by other telescopes. As such, the team of scientists believe the telescope could help answer some of the universe’s biggest mysteries.
'Why the universe looks the way it does on a large scale,' 'How galaxies form and evolve' and 'the origins of water' are just a few of the questions that NASA could answer with this data.
"SPHEREx is a testament to doing big science with a small telescope," said Beth Fabinsky, the deputy project manager of SPHEREx at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.
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Once in orbit, SPHEREx will scan the sky twice a year, methodically gathering images of different regions of space, per the mission description.
"It weighs about 1,100 pounds [500 kilograms], so a little less than a grand piano, and uses about 270 to 300 watts of power — less than a refrigerator," Fabinsky added. "It produces more power than it needs using a thick solar array, very much like one you might have on the roof of your house."
One of the telescope’s biggest goals is to study the first moments after the Big Bang, in particular, a process known as cosmic inflation.
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By mapping the way hundreds of millions of galaxies are distributed, scientists hope to uncover patterns that trace back to those earliest moments of existence.
Equipped on the SPHEREx is a prism-like spectrophotometer that splits light into 102 colours, allowing it to detect frozen life-building molecules in interstellar clouds. By analysing elements like hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon and sulphur, researchers hope to learn how the essential ingredients for life travel through space and eventually reach planets.
If successful, Tesla and SpaceX owner Elon Musk's plan for Mars colonisation might well come to fruition in the future.
"I expect the unexpected to come out of the data for this mission," stated James Fanson, the project manager of SPHEREx.