NASA’s future mission SPHEREx will be able to scan the entire sky every six months and create a map of space that has no analogues. The launch is scheduled no later than April 2025. The mission will study what happened in the first seconds after the Big Bang, how galaxies form and develop, and the prevalence of molecules critical to the formation of life, such as water, trapped in our galaxy as ice. To achieve this goal, state-of-the-art technology will be needed, and NASA approved final plans for all components of the observatory this month.
“We’re at the transition from doing things with computer models to doing things with real hardware,” said Allen Farrington, SPHEREx project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which manages the mission. “The design for the spacecraft, as it stands, is confirmed. We have shown that it’s doable down to the smallest details. So now we can really start building and putting things together.”
SPHEREx stands for Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer. The name itself indicates two areas of research. First, it is the history of the universe as a whole and its constituent galaxies. Second, an overview of the cosmic reserves of water and other substances without which the existence of life is impossible.
What can SPHEREx say about the universe in general? First of all, it will receive a spectrum of 490 million galaxies, which will determine the distance to the star system. That is, these galaxies will be plotted on a three-dimensional map. The three-dimensional distribution of galaxies bears the imprint of the history of the universe and the laws that govern its development. The map compiled by SPHEREx will be particularly useful for studying space inflation. This is the hypothetical explosive expansion of space-time in the first fraction of a second after the Big Bang.
The universe is still expanding, but it is assumed that immediately after the Big Bang, this process was going at an incredible pace. The entire observable part of the universe has literally swelled from a tiny area of space. In the first 10-35 seconds after the Big Bang, the volume of this “ball” increased, according to various estimates, 1030-1080 times. It should be noted that not all cosmologists agree with inflation theory. But it connects many properties of the observable universe that are difficult to explain otherwise.
For example, this theory explains why space is so homogeneous on a large scale. All large enough (from hundreds of millions to billions of light years) areas of the universe look like two drops of water. Comparing their size with the speed of light (no matter or radiation is transmitted faster), scientists were forced to conclude that each such region had its own independent history.
Cosmologists have long argued what caused this inflation. According to one hypothesis, it was the birth of particles from a vacuum (Casimir effect), which superimposed on the curvature of space-time. Other models introduce a special field responsible for inflation – inflaton. The third involves several inflatons. The distribution maps of galaxies compiled by SPHEREx will allow to make a choice in favor of any of these theories. At least scientists are very hopeful about this.
Cosmologists have long argued that caused inflation. According to one hypothesis, it was the birth of particles from a vacuum (Casimir effect), which superimposed on the curvature of space-time. Other models introduce a special field responsible for inflation – inflaton. The third involves several inflatons. The distribution maps of galaxies compiled by SPHEREx will allow you to make a choice in favor of any of these theories. At least scientists are very hopeful.
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