NASA SPHEREx Space Telescope Reveals Its First Cosmic Images

The NASA SPHEREx mission, launched on 11 March 2025, has finally opened its eyes to the cosmos, taking some impressive images. NASA made these images public in an official blog post that hit the internet on 1 April 2025.

First Six Images From NASA SPHEREx Revealed

The NASA SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) is a part of the agency’s mission that was launched into space on 11 March 2025. NASA PUNCH is the second mission that set out to space on 11 March 2025 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

The purpose of this mission is to help expand upon the work of the James Webb Space Telescope, which has been in operation since 25 December 2021. Now we have the first images, revealing some details about our universe using various wavelengths of light.

NASA points out that while “the new images are uncalibrated and not yet ready to use for science, they give a tantalizing look at SPHEREx’s wide view of the sky.” From the six images, we can identify various stars and galaxies which appear as bright spots.

The six images are products of the individual detector that the SHPEREx is equipped with. Over the next two years, the mission will take over 600 images of our galaxy daily.

These images will be calibrated for use in science, as astronomers and scientists alike will use them to better understand the makeup of our universe. While we wait for these calibrated images to roll out daily, we need to understand how the mission takes these images.

How Does The NASA SPHEREx Take Images?

To take images of the universe, the NASA SPHEREx relies on its ability to detect infrared light invisible to the human eye. The various colours that we can see on the images provided by SPHEREx represent various infrared wavelengths that the mission can detect.

The six detectors aboard the SHPEREx feature 17 unique wavelength bands, which enable it to view a total of 102 hues with every six-image exposure. To better understand the images, scientists will need to break down the color, hence revealing the composition of an object or better perceive the distance of an object to a galaxy.

Unlike the James Webb space telescope, which views small areas in space, the NASA SPHEREx can view a larger area in space. The wider vision can help provide more data per image to help shed more light on our universe.

Using its advanced imaging technology, the mission aims to map the entire universe four times in the space of two years. Over the coming months, we expect to see more images from SPHEREx, which scientists will use to study our universe.