Overview
- SPHEREx completed its first all-sky infrared map using observations collected from May through December 2025 across 102 wavelengths.
- The spacecraft orbits Earth about 14.5 times daily, capturing roughly 3,600 sky slices per day to assemble a full 360-degree view in six months.
- Launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 from California in March 2025, the mission began science operations in May.
- NASA plans three additional full-sky scans during the two-year primary mission to increase sensitivity by merging successive maps.
- The wide, multicolor survey complements the James Webb Space Telescope’s narrow, high-resolution observations and will support studies of early-universe inflation, galaxy evolution, and the distribution of water ice and organics in the Milky Way.