NASA’s latest space telescope has officially begun its mission—and it’s already proving to be a powerful new eye on the universe. The SPHEREx observatory, launched on March 11, has taken its very first images from space, showcasing its ability to detect infrared light across vast cosmic distances. These vibrant, rainbow-processed snapshots are just the beginning: SPHEREx is preparing to map hundreds of millions of galaxies across the entire sky. The development and early observations were detailed in a recent update from NASA.
The mission, which stands for Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer, is designed to answer fundamental questions about the origins of water, the evolution of galaxies, and the conditions that shaped the early universe.
A Rainbow View of the Universe
Each SPHEREx image is made using infrared wavelengths invisible to the human eye. To translate them into something we can see, scientists applied visible colors to represent specific bands—creating a radiant, rainbow-like view of the cosmos.
Each exposure includes six detector images, capturing a field about 20 times wider than the full Moon. In just a single frame, SPHEREx can record data from over 100,000 light sources, including stars, galaxies, and nebulae.
What makes these images even more impressive? They come from uncalibrated detectors, meaning the telescope is still in its early operational phase—and already delivering remarkably detailed visuals.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Eyes Wide Open—and Laser Focused
SPHEREx’s design is all about coverage. Unlike Hubble or the James Webb Space Telescope, which focus deeply on narrow targets, SPHEREx will scan the entire sky four times during its two-year primary mission.
Each of its six detectors includes 17 wavelength bands, totaling 102 unique hues per exposure. This level of spectral detail allows scientists to analyze not just what’s out there, but what those objects are made of and how far away they are—key data for exploring the early universe.
These early images confirm that the telescope’s focus—adjusted pre-launch and fixed for the duration of the mission—is working exactly as intended. This is especially critical for detecting faint, distant objects in the far-infrared spectrum.
What SPHEREx Will Reveal
Once routine science operations begin later in April, SPHEREx will take about 600 exposures per day as it surveys the sky. It’s expected to gather data on:
- The distribution of water ice in the Milky Way
- The large-scale structure of the universe
- How galaxies evolved over billions of years
- The cosmic conditions less than a second after the Big Bang
SPHEREx uses a method called spectroscopy, breaking light into component wavelengths to uncover an object’s chemical composition and distance—critical tools for mapping the invisible structure of the cosmos.
Collaboration and Cosmic Scale
SPHEREx is a collaboration managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in partnership with Caltech, and supported by research institutions in the US, South Korea, and Taiwan. The observatory’s telescope and spacecraft bus were built by BAE Systems, while data processing and archival will be handled at IPAC at Caltech.
It’s designed to work in tandem with narrow-field missions like JWST, helping scientists stitch together an ultra-high-resolution mosaic of the universe by combining wide sky surveys with deep, focused imagery.
Over the course of its mission, SPHEREx won’t just deliver beautiful views—it will provide a galactic census of unprecedented scale, offering new clues about how the universe expanded, how galaxies formed, and where the building blocks of life came from.
