NASA’s latest space telescope launched into orbit Tuesday, set to map the entire sky like never before—offering a sweeping view of hundreds of millions of galaxies and their cosmic glow dating back to the universe’s earliest days.

A SpaceX Falcon rocket carried the SPHEREx observatory into space from California, sending it on a path to fly over Earth’s poles. Also onboard were four suitcase-sized satellites designed to study the sun. SPHEREx separated from the rocket’s upper stage first, drifting into the darkness of space with Earth’s blue glow in the background.

The $488 million mission aims to explain how galaxies formed and evolved over billions of years and to investigate how the universe expanded so rapidly in its infancy. Closer to home, within our own Milky Way galaxy, SPHEREx will search for water and other building blocks of life in the icy clouds between stars, where new solar systems take shape.

The cone-shaped telescope, weighing 1,110 pounds (500 kilograms)—roughly the size of a grand piano—will take six months to map the entire sky using its infrared vision and wide field of view. Over two years, it will complete four full-sky surveys while orbiting Earth from pole to pole at an altitude of 400 miles (650 kilometers).

Unlike NASA’s Hubble and Webb space telescopes, which capture detailed images of galaxies, SPHEREx will focus on the collective glow of all galaxies, including the earliest ones formed after the Big Bang.

"This cosmological glow captures all light emitted over cosmic history," said Jamie Bock, the mission’s chief scientist at the California Institute of Technology. "It’s a very different way of looking at the universe," allowing scientists to detect sources of light that may have previously gone unnoticed.

By analyzing this collective glow, scientists hope to identify light from the universe’s first galaxies and uncover how they came into existence. "We won’t see the Big Bang itself, but we’ll observe its aftermath and learn about the universe’s beginnings," Bock said.

SPHEREx’s infrared detectors can distinguish 102 colors invisible to the human eye, producing the most colorful and comprehensive cosmic map ever created. "It’s like looking at the universe through a set of rainbow-colored glasses," said Beth Fabinsky, deputy project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

To keep its infrared detectors at an ultra-cold temperature of minus 350 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 210 degrees Celsius), SPHEREx features a unique design. Its three aluminum-honeycomb cones, nested inside one another, protect it from the sun’s heat—resembling a 10-foot (3-meter) shield collar for a dog.

In addition to launching SPHEREx, SpaceX’s Falcon rocket carried a set of NASA satellites known as PUNCH. These four small spacecraft, operating in their own polar orbits, will study the sun’s corona—the outermost layer of its atmosphere—and the solar wind that flows through space.

Tuesday’s evening launch had been delayed for two weeks due to rocket-related and other technical issues.

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