NASA's newest space telescope blasts off

Instead of counting galaxies, SPHEREx will observe the total glow produced by the whole lot, including the earliest ones

- MARCIA DUNN

NASA's NEWEST SPACE telescope rocketed into orbit Tuesday to map the entire sky like never before — a sweeping look at hundreds of millions of galaxies and their shared cosmic glow since the beginning of time.

SpaceX launched the SPHEREx observatory from California, putting it on course to fly over Earth's poles. Tagging along were four suitcase-size satellites to study the sun. SPHEREx popped off the rocket's upper stage first, drifting into the blackness of space with a blue Earth in the background.