NASA begins final design and construction of hardware and software for the Spherex space telescope. The observatory should be launched in three or four years and will map the position of billions of galaxies using near-infrared light.
NASA space agency writes that the Spherex has officially reached Phase C, meaning the preliminary design has been approved and work on the final design can now begin. This brings the launch of the space telescope one step closer. The launch should take place in June 2024 at the earliest and no later than April 2025. The NASA team will now spend 29 months completing the design and building of the components, before entering the assembly and testing phase. will start.
The telescope will be deployed on a two-year mission during which its instruments will map the entire sky four times to create a vast database of stars, nebulae and other objects. Using spectroscopy, the near-infrared light will be analyzed for its individual wavelengths, so that it can be determined based on the different colors what certain objects consist of. This is possible because individual chemical elements emit and absorb specific light wavelengths. Spherex will observe a total of 102 near infrared colors. The distance of the various objects from the earth is also determined, so that in fact a three-dimensional map is created.
There are three main objectives for the mission. First, the telescope must look for evidence of events that may have occurred a split second after the Big Bang. During that billionth of a second, there may have been an exponential expansion of space called cosmic inflation. This will have influenced the distribution of matter in the cosmos. By looking at the spacing and patterns of galaxies, we may learn more about the physical processes underlying the expansion of the universe.
In addition, the telescope will study the history of galaxy formation by looking at the faint glow of galaxies. From this it is possible to learn more about how the first galaxies formed stars. Finally, Spherex is also being used to search for water ice and frozen organic molecules in newly formed stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. These are the building blocks for life on Earth, and scientists want to know how common such materials are in young planetary systems. This may say something about how common planetary systems like ours are in the universe.
The telescope’s instruments are specifically aimed at detecting near-infrared light. The infrared part of the spectrum is not necessarily needed for objects that are relatively close to Earth; then light from the visible spectrum may be sufficient. This does not apply to galaxies or other objects that formed shortly after the Big Bang and are very far from Earth. This requires the infrared part of the spectrum. This also makes it possible to properly map nebulae and gas clouds; these consist, among other things, of dust, which absorbs visible light. Infrared light does get through.