NASA's Spherex telescope was launched into orbit on Tuesday, marking a significant milestone in space exploration. This groundbreaking mission aims to create an unprecedented map of the entire sky, examining hundreds of millions of galaxies and their collective cosmic glow since the universe's inception. The launch was executed by CBS News from California, setting the observatory on a polar orbit meant to maximize its observational capabilities.

The Spherex mission, with a budget of $488 million, seeks to explore the formation and evolution of galaxies over billions of years and probe the rapid expansion of the universe during its early moments. Within our own Milky Way galaxy, Spherex will work to identify water and other essential ingredients for life found in interstellar icy clouds where new solar systems form. As detailed in an article from Los Angeles Times, the telescope, which weighs about 1,110 pounds (the equivalent of a grand piano), is equipped with advanced infrared sensors that will capture the glow emitted from the cosmos.

Over the next two years, Spherex will conduct four complete sky surveys from an altitude of 400 miles (approximately 650 kilometers), using its wide field of view rather than focusing on individual galaxies as seen with NASA's larger Hubble and Webb telescopes. Chief scientist Jamie Bock from Caltech explained, "This cosmological glow captures all light emitted over cosmic history," emphasizing the innovative observational strategy employed by Spherex to identify previously undetected light sources. Bock further stated, "We won't see the Big Bang. But we'll see the aftermath from it and learn about the beginning of the universe that way."

The Spherex telescope is uniquely designed with three nested aluminum-honeycomb cones to maintain its infrared detectors at an extremely low temperature of minus 350 degrees Fahrenheit. This design has been compared to "looking at the universe through a set of rainbow-colored glasses," according to Beth Fabinsky, deputy project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Alongside Spherex, SpaceX's Falcon rocket also launched four compact satellites named Punch, which will study the sun's corona and solar wind from their own polar orbit.

This launch was initially delayed by two weeks due to technical difficulties, but marks a new chapter in our understanding of the universe, as reflected in reports from India Times and other outlets.