NASA's Newest Space Telescope Blasts Off to Map Sky, Galaxies

NASA's newest space telescope rocketed into orbit on 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.

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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.