NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization, and Ices Explorer) space telescope has made its first infrared map of the entire sky in 102 colors using observations made between May and December 2025. Although they are not visible to the human eye, these 102 infrared wavelengths of light are widespread throughout the cosmos, and observing the entire sky in this way allows scientists to answer big questions, including how a dramatic event that occurred during the first billionth of a year One trillionth of a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang influenced the 3D distribution of hundreds of millions of galaxies in our Universe. In addition, they will use the data to study the evolution of galaxies over the 13.8 billion year history of the Universe and learn more about the distribution of key ingredients of life in our own Milky Way.
This infrared image from SPHEREx shows a selection of colors emitted primarily by stars (blue, green and white), hot hydrogen gas (blue) and cosmic dust (red). Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.
Circling the Earth approximately 14.5 times per day, SPHEREx travels from north to south, passing over the poles.
Each day, about 3,600 images are taken along a circular strip of sky, and as the days pass and the planet moves around the Sun, SPHEREx’s field of view also changes.
After six months, the observatory looked into space in all directions, capturing the entire sky in 360 degrees.
Managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, the mission began mapping the sky in May and completed its first sky mosaic in December.
It will perform three additional scans of the sky during its two-year primary mission, and merging these maps will increase the sensitivity of the measurements.
“It’s incredible how much information SPHEREx has collected in just six months – information that will be especially valuable when used with data from our other missions to better understand our Universe,” said Dr. Shawn Domagal-Goldman, director of the Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters.
“We basically have 102 new maps of the entire sky, each in a different wavelength and containing unique information about the objects it sees.”
“I think every astronomer will find something valuable here, as NASA missions allow the world to answer fundamental questions about how the universe came to be and how it changed to ultimately make it a home for us.”
“SPHEREx is a medium-sized astrophysics mission that provides major scientific advances,” said Dave Gallagher, director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“This is a phenomenal example of how we turn bold ideas into reality and, in doing so, unlock enormous potential for discovery.”
Each of the 102 colors detected by SPHEREx represents a wavelength of infrared light, and each wavelength provides unique information about the galaxies, stars, planet-forming regions and other cosmic features found there.
For example, dense clouds of dust in our Galaxy, where stars and planets form, radiate brightly in some wavelengths but emit no light (and are therefore completely invisible) in others.
The process of separating light from a source into its component wavelengths is called spectroscopy.
And while a handful of previous missions have also mapped the entire sky, such as NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, none have done so with as many colors as SPHEREx.
In contrast, the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope can perform spectroscopy with many more wavelengths of light than SPHEREx, but with a field of view thousands of times smaller.
The combination of colors and such a wide field of vision are why SPHEREx is so powerful.
“The superpower of SPHEREx is that it captures the entire sky in 102 colors approximately every six months,” said SPHEREx project manager Dr. Beth Fabinsky, also of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“That’s an incredible amount of information to put together in a short amount of time.”
“I think this makes us the mantis shrimp of telescopes, because we have an incredible multi-color visual detection system and we can also see a very broad swath of our environment.”
