This image features a selection of colors emitted primarily by stars. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s SPHEREx observatory mission is providing scientists with the first stunning “cosmic map” of the sky.
NASA has created a new all-sky map using its space telescope, SPHEREx. The map shows the Universe in 102 different colors of infrared light, revealing details that can’t be seen with ordinary telescopes.
SPHEREx—short for Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization, and Ices Explorer—orbits Earth almost 15 times a day. During each orbit, it takes about 3,600 images of the sky.
The telescope has now completed its first comprehensive infrared map of the entire sky. The released sky mosaics show small sections of this massive scan.
Launched in March 2025, SPHEREx is expected to help astronomers tackle some of the biggest questions about the Universe—such as what happened just moments after the Big Bang and how those early events shaped the vast web of galaxies we see today.
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