{"id":9438,"date":"2023-11-10T00:50:01","date_gmt":"2023-11-10T00:50:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/power2innovate.com\/construction-on-nasa-mission-to-map-450-million-galaxies-is-under-way\/"},"modified":"2023-11-10T00:50:01","modified_gmt":"2023-11-10T00:50:01","slug":"construction-on-nasa-mission-to-map-450-million-galaxies-is-under-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/power2innovate.com\/construction-on-nasa-mission-to-map-450-million-galaxies-is-under-way\/","title":{"rendered":"Construction on NASA mission to map 450 million galaxies is under way"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n Sara Susca, deputy payload manager and payload systems engineer for NASA\u2019s SPHEREx mission, looks up at one of the spacecraft\u2019s photon shields. These concentric cones protect the telescope from light and heat from the Sun and the Earth, which can overwhelm the telescope\u2019s detectors. Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

NASA’s SPHEREx space telescope is beginning to look much like it will when it arrives in Earth orbit and starts mapping the entire sky. Short for Specto-Photometer for the History of the universe, Epoch of Reionization, and Ices Explorer, SPHEREx resembles a bullhorn, albeit one that will stand almost 8.5 feet tall (2.6 meters) and stretch nearly 10.5 feet (3.2 meters) wide. Giving the observatory its distinctive shape are its cone-shaped photon shields, which are being assembled in a clean room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.<\/p>\n

Three cones, each nestled within another, will surround SPHEREx’s telescope to protect it from the light and heat of the sun and Earth. The spacecraft will sweep over every section of the sky, like scanning the inside of a globe, to complete two all-sky maps every year.\n<\/p>\n

“SPHEREx has to be quite agile because the spacecraft has to move relatively quickly as it scans the sky,” said JPL’s Sara Susca, deputy payload manager and payload systems engineer for the mission. “It doesn’t look that way, but the shields are actually quite light and made with layers of material like a sandwich. The outside has aluminum sheets, and inside is an aluminum honeycomb structure that looks like cardboard\u2014light but sturdy.”\n<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n \"Construction
\n The telescope for NASA\u2019s SPHEREx mission undergoes testing at JPL. It is tilted on its base so it can see as much of the sky as possible while remaining within the protection of three concentric cones that protect the telescope from light and heat from the Sun and Earth. Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

When it launches\u2014no later than April 2025\u2014SPHEREx will help scientists better understand where water and other key ingredients necessary for life originated. To do this, the mission will measure the abundance of water ice in interstellar clouds of gas and dust, where new stars are born and from which planets eventually form. It will study the cosmic history of galaxies by measuring the collective light they produce.\n<\/p>\n

Those measurements will help tease out when galaxies began to form and how their formation has changed over time. Finally, by mapping the location of millions of galaxies relative to one another, SPHEREx will look for new clues about how the rapid expansion, or inflation, of the universe took place a fraction of a second after the big bang.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n <\/p>\n

\n