A NASA space telescope was launched from California on Tuesday on a mission to explore the origins of the universe and detect hidden reservoirs of water.
The SPHEREx telescope was carried into orbit by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base at 11:10 p.m. ET (8:10 p.m. PT).
SPHEREx—short for Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer—will spend the next two years collecting data on more than 450 million galaxies and 100 million stars in the Milky Way to explore the origins of the universe, according to NASA.
As part of its mission, the cone-shaped observatory, which weighs 1,110 pounds (500 kilograms), will search for water, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and other key ingredients for life in stellar nurseries, regions where stars form from gas and dust. It will also search for essential elements in disks around stars where new planets may be forming….