Projects

SPHEREx, a mission selected by NASA as the next Medium Explorer (MIDEX) in February 2019, with a planned launch in 2024, is an all-sky survey satellite designed to address all three science goals in NASA's Astrophysics Division, with a single instrument, a wide-field spectral imager.We will probe the physics of inflation by measuring non-Gaussianity by studying large-scale structure, surveying a large cosmological volume at low redshifts, complementing high-z surveys optimized to constrain dark energy. The origin of water and biogenic molecules will be investigated in all phases of planetary system formation - from molecular clouds to young stellar systems with protoplanetary disks - by measuring ice absorption spectra. We will chart the origin and history of galaxy formation through a deep survey mapping large-scale spatial power in two deep fields located near the ecliptic poles. Following in the tradition of all-sky missions such as IRAS, COBE and WISE, SPHEREx will be the first all-sky near-infrared spectral survey. SPHEREx will create spectra (0.75 – 5 um at R = 35-130) with high sensitivity using a cooled telescope with a wide field-of-view for large mapping speed. During its two-year mission, SPHEREx will produce four complete all-sky maps that will serve as a rich archive for the astronomy community. With over a billion detected galaxies, hundreds of millions of high-quality stellar and galactic spectra the archive will enable diverse scientific investigations and enable many synergistic analysis with other large scale structure surveys of the next decade.