Overview
- NASA announced on Dec. 18 that SPHEREx completed its first 360-degree infrared survey, mapping the sky in 102 wavelengths.
- The telescope achieves its multicolor view with six detectors, each using a 17-color gradient filter to produce 102 spectral channels per image.
- SPHEREx will perform three additional all-sky scans during its two-year mission, and combining the passes will increase measurement sensitivity.
- The multicolor data enable a three-dimensional atlas of hundreds of millions of galaxies to study cosmic structure, early-universe inflation and galaxy evolution.
- The dataset is publicly available through IPAC/Caltech, and the mission’s wide coverage complements the deeper but narrower spectroscopic capabilities of JWST.