Spatial spherex telescope: the cosmic survey which could rewrite the history of the universe

Spatial spherex telescope: the cosmic survey which could rewrite the history of the universe


The Spherex space telescope will be responsible for elucidating a number of cosmos mysteries.

© Nasa / JPL/ Caltech

Spatial telescopes are on the rise, their ability to make us discover new things is unequaled. We will also explain why it is so relevant to send them to space rather than building them on the ground.

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Hubble, Spitzer, James-Webb, Euclid, and now Spherex, to note only the best known, operate in part in the wavelength of the infrared, ideal for scrutinizing stars and galaxies, because it allows you to see through dust and study very distant objects.

Spherex weighs a little less than 500 kg and will be launched by a Falcon 9 of SpaceX from February 27, at the same time as other sun observation satellites.

SPHEREx durant sa conception.

© NASA/JPL-Caltech

Why send telescopes to space?

The question arises, especially since this process induces a technical limit to the size of the telescopes and their mirror, their most important part, that responsible for collecting light. Indeed, the headdress of a rocket is not infinitely expandable, it was notably necessary to fold the James-Webb like an origami so that it enters Ariane 5!

It is an astrophysicist of NASA, Lyman Spitzer, who would have had the first idea of ​​getting rid of our atmosphere by sending a telescope in terrestrial orbit. If today astronomers master techniques to obtain on the ground roughly the same results in visible light as taking pictures directly in space (adaptive optics), it is different for infrared.

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Infrared is a kind of thermal signature of objects

Anything that has a temperature above absolute zero (-273.5 ° C) emits infrared, so all objects in the universe. Thus, depending on the sensitivity that we want to give to a telescope, it will have to be contaminated by its own heat or the environment, for example the soil which gives off infrared. This is why an infrared observatory is much better in space. Spherex will also have to stay cold, around -210 ° C, to work well.

Spherex will see 102 “colors” different infrared

Comparison of the spectral sensitivity of Hubble and James-Webb.

© Nasa

Talking about “colors” infrared is clearly an abuse of language, the colors being by definition in the visible strip of the spectrum. But if the human eye perceived the infrared, he would then see new colors and Spherex will indeed observe the equivalent of 102 different shades – 96 according to other sources – in the near and medium infrared. His sensitivity will be the biggest, just behind his big cousin, the James-Webb.

Project with a “modest” budget of $ 488 million, Spherex will carry out each year of gigantic panoramic surveys of all the space around it, of the surveys in the jargon of scientists.

Spherex will perform gigantic panoramic space all around it, every six months.

© Nasa / JPL-Caltech

What are the missions of Spherex?

  • Offer a better understanding of the phenomenon called “cosmic inflation”. The characteristics of the universe indeed indicate that all its regions communicated during its first moments and that it suddenly enlarged far beyond what the current expansion seems capable. Even today, we do not know how the universe did that. Spherex will study the spatial distribution of 450 million galaxies to see more clearly.

  • Spherex will have to measure the light production of all near and distant galaxies in an unprecedented way.

  • The space telescope will seek the frozen elements, for example water, around the stars of the Milky Way, in the big molecular clouds like Rho Ophiucci (see photo below).

  • He will make the most precise infrared statement of all the space around us.

The Rho Ophiuchi molecular cloud forms stars. Spherex will measure its abundance in water ice and other frozen elements with which the planets are formed.

© NASA/JPL-Caltech

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