The $488 million Spherex mission aims to explain how galaxies formed and evolved over billions of years, and how the universe expanded so fast in its first moments.

NASA’s newest space telescope rocketed into orbit Tuesday to map the entire sky like never before — a sweeping look at hundreds of millions of galaxies and their shared cosmic glow since the beginning of time.

A semi-frontal view of the SPHEREx observatory is seen during integration and testing at BAE Systems in Boulder, Colorado, U.S., in this handout photo obtained by Reuters on February 24, 2025. NASA/JPL-Caltech/Handout via REUTERS THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY (Reuters) - A NASA telescope was launched into space from California on Tuesday for a mission to explore the origins of the universe and to scour the Milky Way galaxy for hidden reservoirs of water,