NASA’s newest astrophysics observatory, SPHEREx, recently launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. Accompanying the telescope is a suite of four satellites known collectively as PUNCH, which will study the sun’s outer atmosphere and solar wind.
It’s on its way to study the origins of our universe and the history of galaxies, and to search for the ingredients of life in our galaxy. The infrared space telescope will spend about two years orbiting Earth from 404 miles overhead, collecting data on more than 450 million galaxies. The telescope also will survey more than 100 million stars in our galaxy.
Lots of space afficianados are excited about the mission, including University of Central Florida Physics Professor Yan Fernandez of UCF’s Planetary Sciences group.
Because of Fernandez’s strengths in space technologies, comets and asteroids, he and his research group at UCF were tapped to collect data from the SPHEREx mission, driving innovation and exploration across space.
Researchers and educators at America’s Space University are recognized leaders in space science. The university was founded to help fuel talent for the nearby space industry, and that same relentless spirit powers UCF’s commitment today to boldly forge the future of space. That includes Fernandez’s team’s involvement in SPHEREx, which has the ability to identify an amazing array of colors and wavelengths.
“Essentially, we’re getting infrared-color info about every object that the telescope detects. In fact, we’re getting about 100 colors — there are about 100 specific wavelengths that the telescope will be measuring,” says Fernandez.
It covers some of the same wavelengths as the infrared James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) but is much smaller; the primary mirror is only 8 inches wide.
“Every source we detect will have an infrared spectrum that has about 100 data points,” says Fernandez. “And using infrared wavelengths is very advantageous over visible wavelengths alone, in that it can get you much more detailed compositional and physical info about lots of astrophysical objects.”
Despite the diminutive size of the primary mirror, it covers a much bigger field-of-view, allowing it to map literally the entire sky – something JWST could never do. The data that the mission will collect will be spectral images, i.e. spectral data cubes, where two of the dimensions of the cube show you spatial information and the third dimension displays wavelength.
“Serendipitously, the telescope will also give us infrared spectra of about 80,000 asteroids, and about 200 comets. These will be really useful since SPHEREx’s wavelength coverage is not so easy to replicate from ground-based telescopes,” says Fernandez. “We are potentially going to have tremendous statistics to play with in terms of understanding compositional and physical diversity among asteroids and comets.”
The mission’s main objectives involve large-scale structure of the Universe at early times in its history, galaxy formation/birth at various epochs of the Universe, and the composition of young ‘solar systems’ with planets that are being formed right now.
“Personally my main research interest is in the comets, although there are several classes or asteroids that are not too far removed from comets, so I hope to study some of those also,” says Fernandez.
In addition to delivering the most detailed infrared map of the cosmos to date, the telescope will also search for essential life-building molecules, including water and carbon dioxide, hidden within the vast interstellar clouds of gas and dust in our galaxy.
