{"id":13340,"date":"2019-02-14T18:05:40","date_gmt":"2019-02-14T10:05:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/nasa-selects-mission-to-probe-the-history-of-galaxies-2\/"},"modified":"2019-02-14T18:05:40","modified_gmt":"2019-02-14T10:05:40","slug":"nasa-selects-mission-to-probe-the-history-of-galaxies-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/nasa-selects-mission-to-probe-the-history-of-galaxies-2\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA selects mission to probe the history of galaxies"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Artist\u2019s concept of the SPHEREx spacecraft in orbit. Credit: Caltech<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NASA has selected a space telescope named SPHEREx for launch in 2023 on a mission to survey the sky in near-infrared wavelengths, collecting spectral data to study the origins of the universe and ices in our own galaxy that could help seed life on planets.<\/p>\n

The small-sized telescope is projected to cost $242 million to develop and build \u2014 excluding launch costs \u2014 and will be NASA\u2019s next Medium-class Explorer, or MIDEX, mission. SPHEREx will scan the sky once every six months, observing hundreds of millions of stars and galaxies from its perch in low Earth orbit.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith this announcement, we look forward to building SPHEREx,\u201d said Jamie Bock, the mission\u2019s principal investigator at Caltech, in a statement. \u201cSPHEREx will explore the beginning of the universe, the history of galaxy formation, and the role of interstellar ices during the birth of new stars and planets, while providing a unique all-sky data set for astronomy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer, or SPHEREx, will collect data about the constituents of dust clouds and interstellar ices that come together to form stars and planets, and the large-scale structure of galactic clusters. The information could tell scientists more about the origin of life-supporting organic molecules and water, and the nature of the ancient universe.<\/p>\n

Much of Bock\u2019s research has focused on studying cosmic inflation, a theory that predicts the universe exponentially expanded a fraction of a second after the Big Bang. Experiments developed by Bock and his colleagues have probed the ancient universe, searching for clues that might support the inflationary model of how the cosmos grew and evolved to eventually begin forming stars and galaxies.<\/p>\n

The cosmic microwave background, the relic heat from the Big Bang measured by NASA and ESA space missions such as COBE, WMAP and Planck, is nearly uniform. The cosmic microwave background measurements suggest only modest density and temperature fluctuations throughout the universe around 380,000 years after the Big Bang, before the first galaxies.<\/p>\n

Polarization signals from the dawn of time could help confirm that inflation did, in fact, occur, and provide clues about the physical processes that drove it.<\/p>\n

SPHEREx will take a different tack on the one of the most provocative questions in cosmology. Instead of trying to detect a signal from the time just after the Big Bang some  13.8 billion years ago, the new NASA space mission will trace the signature of inflation on the distribution of galaxies throughout the observable universe. The nature of inflation should have left a fingerprint on the position of galaxies today, Bock said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the first all-sky spectral survey of its kind, basically we map every pixel in the sky, in a range of wavelengths \u2014 actually in 96 spectral bands,\u201d Bock said in an interview with Spaceflight Now. \u201cThe whole trick is to do that efficiently and quickly. It\u2019s not a big telescope, but it has a lot of light-gathering power. It\u2019s got a big field-of-view, so it\u2019s designed to this rapid survey.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Spaceflight Now members can read a transcript of our full interview with Jamie Bock. Become a member today and support our coverage.<\/h6>\n
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Previous infrared all-sky surveys by missions like the Infrared Astronomical Satellite and NASA\u2019s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer \u2014 IRAS and WISE \u2014 were sensitive to far fewer colors than SPHEREx.<\/p>\n

\u201cInflation happened less than a nanosecond after the Big Bang, it is thought,\u201d Bock said. \u201cThat is the dominant theory \u2026 Inflation sets up fluctuations, initial density fluctuations, that galaxies fall into, and galaxies form in. So you can turn that round. In other words, you can measure the structure of galaxies on large scales to trace out those initial fluctuations. That\u2019s actually sensitive to inflationary physics, as it turns out. That\u2019s what we\u2019re doing with SPHEREx.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re a small telescope, so we\u2019re not going deep into individual fields, but we cover the whole sky. This survey has a very large volume, so we can see fluctuations, set up by inflation, that galaxies trace on these large spatial scales. It turns out there\u2019s some unique stuff you can prove about the properties of inflation from that, which is pretty remarkable. Inflation was a big event, so its signatures are still with us today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Closer to home, SPHEREx\u2019s gaze will reveal information about stellar nurseries, where matter clumps together to form stars and planets.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs it turns out, when stars are born in a medium, they\u2019re born in these dense molecular clouds,\u201d Bock said. \u201cWater isn\u2019t in the form of water vapor. By and large, it\u2019s in the form of ice that\u2019s bound in the grains of interstellar dust. Not a lot is known about the role of ices in forming star systems or planetary systems, but we think that ice from the interstellar medium finds its way into solar systems as they\u2019re evolving. In particular, in our own system, it\u2019s thought that the water that came to Earth had an interstellar origin one way or another.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we will be doing an all-sky survey of the abundance of ices,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not just water ice. It\u2019s also organic ices like methanol and carbon dioxide. Those ices are known to exist as well. So this will be a boon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scientists will likely find other uses for SPHEREx\u2019s dataset, which will produce an all-sky map once every six months. SPHEREx\u2019s mission is scheduled to last at least two years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis amazing mission will be a treasure trove of unique data for astronomers,\u201d said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA\u2019s science mission directorate. \u201cIt will deliver an unprecedented galactic map containing \u2018fingerprints\u2019 from the first moments in the universe\u2019s history. And we\u2019ll have new clues to one of the greatest mysteries in science: What made the universe expand so quickly less than a nanosecond after the Big Bang?\u201d<\/p>\n

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This afternoon while at @NASAJPL, I notified Jamie Bock, @Caltech professor and the future SPHEREx mission Principal Investigator, that his proposal will become a NASA mission. I\u2019m happy I could tell him this exciting news in person. Watch: <\/p>\n

Mission info: https:\/\/t.co\/Zo0zGVJgkl pic.twitter.com\/Bb41znkAlL<\/p>\n

\u2014 Thomas Zurbuchen (@Dr_ThomasZ) February 13, 2019<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n