Another new space telescope from NASA is coming, which will hopefully unlock the history of the entire universe.
According to NASA’s official website, this space telescope is called SPHEREx, which is a spectrophotometer used to study the history of the universe and the reionization period and to find ice in the early universe.
At present, SPHEREx has obtained NASA's preliminary design plan. In the next step, detailed structure and software and hardware design will begin, and it is expected to launch between June 2024 and April 2025.
The overall volume of SPHEREx is equivalent to a miniature car, and its unique spectroscopy technology will be able to detect near-infrared light and decompose the near-infrared light into different wavelengths or colors to reveal the composition of the object.
In addition, it can also be used to evaluate the distance between objects and the earth to form 3D graphics. NASA will draw four maps through SPHEREx, the map contains huge data composed of stars, galaxies, nebulae, and other celestial bodies.
SPHEREx project manager Allen Farrington (Allen Farrington) said that SPHEREx will be NASA's first task of establishing near-infrared spectroscopy, which can observe a total of 102 near-infrared colors, which is like converting a black and white image to a color image.
The SPHEREx scientific team has three primary goals. The first is to find evidence of something that might happen in less than one billionth of a second after the Big Bang.
The second is to study the history of galaxy formation, from the first stars that were ignited after the Big Bang to the galaxies formed today.
Finally, the scientists will use the SPHEREx map to find around the newly formed stars in the Milky Way and look for organic molecules in water ice, which may be a key component of life on Earth.
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