NASA’s SPHEREx Telescope Completes First Full-Sky Infrared Map

NASA’s SPHEREx space telescope has achieved a groundbreaking milestone with the completion of its first full-sky infrared map. Launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from California in March 2025, the telescope began its scientific observations in May. This panoramic map of the sky, captured in colors invisible to the human eye, marks a significant achievement in astrophysics.

The SPHEREx space telescope, short for Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization, and Ices Explorer, orbits Earth 14. 5 times daily, imaging 3,600 slices of the sky each day. Over six months, it methodically covered the full 360-degree sky, capturing data across 102 wavelengths of infrared light.

The newly released sky map reveals how various cosmic objects emit light at different wavelengths. Hot hydrogen gas appears in blue, cosmic dust in red, and stars in combinations of blue, green, and white. This map showcases features and structures invisible to conventional optical telescopes, which only see visible light.

The breadth and depth of SPHEREx’s data set it apart from other telescopes. Unlike the James Webb Space Telescope, which specializes in high-resolution spectroscopy over small patches of sky, SPHEREx has a wide field of view and ← →