NASA launches space telescope in 2023 to study the origin of the universe

The American space agency NASA plans to place a new telescope in space in 2023. It concerns a space telescope that will, among other things, collect data from the first moments in the history of the universe.

NASA says that a budget of 242 million dollars has been budgeted for the Spherex mission. After launching sometime in 2023, the mission will last approximately two years. The telescope will explore space in optical light and near infrared light. Ultimately, data from three hundred million galaxies must be collected, in addition to data on more than one hundred million stars from the Milky Way Galaxy.

The distant galaxies sometimes involve light that took more than ten billion years to reach the Earth. During the research within the Milky Way Galaxy, the mission will mainly look for water and organic molecules in areas where many stars are ‘born’. Water and organic molecules are essential building blocks for life as we know it.

According to NASA’s Thomas Zurbuchen, the new telescope will provide an “unrivaled galactic map” with “fingerprints” of the early moments of the universe’s history. In addition, Spherex should provide clues that shed more light on what he describes as “one of the greatest mysteries in science”: What caused the universe to expand so quickly, in less than a nanosecond, after the Big Bang?

Spherex will map the entire sky every six months in a much higher color resolution than has been done so far. On the basis of the data, objects can be identified that are of interest for further study, such as the James Webb telescope to be launched in 2021 or the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope, which is also yet to be launched.

The Spherex telescope has yet to be built. The design emerged as the winner after a contract launched in 2016 as part of NASA’s Astrophysics Explorers Program.