As soon as the end of February, NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory will launch a new telescope into orbit around the Earth called SPHEREx. Its goal is to examine nothing less than the essential ingredients of life in our galaxy and the origin of the universe itself.
SPHEREx will join the ranks of other space telescopes, filling in a crucial gap by detecting infrared light with wavelengths too long to see with the naked eye. It's an important addition because no single instrument can fully perceive the universe and its contents.
The new telescope's infrared detectors have to be kept super cold, so the instrument is housed inside three concentric cones atop a set of mirrors that protect it from the sun's energy and the spacecraft's own heat. The whole thing looks like a giant funnel.
"It weighs a little less than a grand piano and uses about 270, 300 watts of power — less than a refrigerator," said Beth Fabinsky, SPHEREx's deputy project manager, at a press conference in late January.
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