SPHEREx to Reveal Origins of Water Across the Milky Way
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📰 The quick summary: NASA’s SPHEREx space telescope launches this week to map frozen water and essential molecules across the Milky Way, helping reveal how planets and life-supporting compounds form in our galaxy.
📈 One key stat: SPHEREx will make over 9 million line-of-sight observations to create the largest-ever survey of frozen compounds in our galaxy, transforming our understanding of planet formation.
💬 One key quote: “If SPHEREx discovers a particularly intriguing location, Webb can study that target with higher spectral resolving power and in wavelengths that SPHEREx cannot detect,” says Gary Melnick, a senior astronomer at the Center for Astrophysics.
1️⃣ The big picture: NASA prepares to launch an innovative space telescope called SPHEREx that will scan the entire Milky Way galaxy searching for frozen water and other key molecules essential for life. Rather than taking regular 2D images, the telescope employs a unique 3D spectral approach to examine molecular clouds where stars and planets form. The mission aims to understand how ice and other compounds crucial for life emerge and evolve in space. Through its comprehensive survey, SPHEREx will map these frozen materials across vast cosmic regions, helping solve mysteries about planet formation and the origins of water in our universe.
2️⃣ Why is this good news: SPHEREx opens up unprecedented possibilities to track the origins and evolution of water and other life-essential molecules throughout our galaxy. The mission will reveal how frozen compounds form on cosmic dust grains and how different space environments influence their abundance. The collected data will become publicly available, providing astronomers worldwide with valuable insights into planet formation processes. By partnering with other telescopes like James Webb, SPHEREx helps create a more complete picture of how the building blocks of life emerge in space.
3️⃣ What’s next: The space telescope launches Thursday, March 6th, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. After reaching orbit, SPHEREx will begin its comprehensive survey of molecular clouds and newly formed stars across the galaxy. Scientists from 13 institutions across three countries will analyze the gathered data, which will then be processed and archived at IPAC at Caltech for public access.
Read the full story here: SciTechDaily – NASA’s SPHEREx on a Cosmic Ice Hunt: Uncovering the Universe’s Hidden Water
