SPHEREx Telescope:
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is tentatively scheduled to launch its new megaphone-shaped space telescope aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
- The Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx) telescope is a megaphone-shaped telescope.
- Tenure: 2 year
- It will map the universe while detecting two kinds of cosmic light, optical and infrared.
- It will measure something called cosmic inflation.
- Cosmic inflation refers to a period which took place around 14 billion years ago, during which the universe expanded faster than the speed of light for a fraction of a second.
- It will help better understand things about the formation of the universe, the growth of all galaxies across cosmic history, and the location of water and life-forming molecules in the Milky Way galaxy.
- It will use spectroscopic images to measure the 3D positions of about 450 million galaxies across cosmic history.
- It will complement the work being done by other infrared telescopes in space, such as the James Webb Space Telescope and Hubble Space Telescope.
- Mapping the whole sky enables astronomers to identify promising regions for life and gather large-scale data to separate meaningful patterns from anomalies, making this mission a transformative step in the search for life beyond Earth.
- One can determine the necessary conditions to form biogenic molecules in space. In turn, this can tell about a crucial step in how life came to be.
