Skip to Content
Artificial intelligence

NASA’s new telescope will investigate the evolution of the universe

February 15, 2019

The telescope is projected to launch in 2023.

A bit of a mouthful: This week, NASA announced it will create the Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer: SPHEREx for short. It’ll look at how our universe has changed, and how common the ingredients of life are in the Milky Way.

What it will do: It will collect data on more than 300 million galaxies and 100 million Milky Way-based stars using optical and near-infrared light. SPHEREx will search for water and organic molecules in stellar nurseries (areas where stars are born). Every six months, the telescope will take a step back and look at the entire sky, creating a detailed sky map that will be used to identify targets for future missions like the James Webb Space Telescope.

Why it matters: “It will deliver an unprecedented galactic map containing ‘fingerprints’ from the first moments in the universe’s history,” says Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “And we’ll 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?”

Want to stay up to date on the latest in space technology? Sign up for our space newsletter, The Airlock.

Deep Dive

Artificial intelligence

The inside story of how ChatGPT was built from the people who made it

Exclusive conversations that take us behind the scenes of a cultural phenomenon.

AI is dreaming up drugs that no one has ever seen. Now we’ve got to see if they work.

AI automation throughout the drug development pipeline is opening up the possibility of faster, cheaper pharmaceuticals.

The original startup behind Stable Diffusion has launched a generative AI for video

Runway’s new model, called Gen-1, can change the visual style of existing videos and movies.

GPT-4 is bigger and better than ChatGPT—but OpenAI won’t say why

We got a first look at the much-anticipated big new language model from OpenAI. But this time how it works is even more deeply under wraps.

Stay connected

Illustration by Rose Wong

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

Explore more newsletters

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.