NASA's SPHEREx telescope blasts off to map entire sky, galaxies

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.

- ASSOCIATED PRESS 12 March

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.

The $488 million SPHEREx mission aims to explain how galaxies formed and evolved over billions of years, and how the universe expanded so fast in its first moments.

Closer to home in our own Milky Way galaxy, SPHEREx will hunt for water and other ingredients of life in the icy clouds between stars where new solar systems emerge.