고급 우주 지도 제작자를 위한 최종 계획

SPHEREx 임무에는 다음과 몇 가지 유사점이 있습니다.[{” attribute=””>James Webb Space Telescope. But the two observatories will take dramatically different approaches to studying the sky.

NASA’s upcoming SPHEREx mission will be able to scan the entire sky every six months and create a map of the cosmos unlike any before. Scheduled to launch no later than April 2025, it will probe what happened within the first second after the big bang, how galaxies form and evolve, and the prevalence of molecules critical to the formation of life, like water, locked away as ice in our galaxy. Achieving these goals will require cutting-edge technology, and NASA has this month approved final plans for all the observatory’s components.

NASA SPHEREx Spacecraft Blueprint

It’s a long road from designing a spacecraft to launching and operating it. Major components of NASA’s SPHEREx spacecraft, which will seek to answer big questions about the universe, are shown in these illustrations, in draft form (this image) and now more fully realized (below). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

“We’re at the transition from doing things with computer models to doing things with real hardware,” said Allen Farrington, SPHEREx project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which manages the mission. “The design for the spacecraft, as it stands, is confirmed. We have shown that it’s doable down to the smallest details. So now we can really start building and putting things together.”

NASA SPHEREx Spacecraft

It’s a long road from designing a spacecraft to launching and operating it. Major components of NASA’s SPHEREx spacecraft, which will seek to answer big questions about the universe, are shown in these illustrations, in draft form (above) and now more fully realized (this image). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

To answer big questions about the universe, scientists need to look at the sky in different ways. Many telescopes, like NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, are built to focus on individual stars, galaxies, or other cosmic objects, and to study them in detail. But SPHEREx (which stands for Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) belongs to another class of space telescopes that quickly observe large portions of the sky, surveying many objects in a short period of time. SPHEREx will scan over 99% of the sky every six months; by contrast, Hubble has observed about 0.1% of the sky in more than 30 years of operations. Although survey telescopes like SPHEREx can’t see objects with the same level of detail as targeted observatories, they can answer questions about the typical properties of those objects throughout the universe.

READ  로켓 보고서: 암호화 자금으로 지원되는 Heavy Rocket; Falcon 9는 운송 중 손상되었습니다.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lr7lqm9KNMS
NASA의 SPHEREx 임무는 97개의 색상 밴드로 하늘 전체를 스캔하여 전 세계 천문학자들에게 도움이 될 지도를 만듭니다. 이 비디오는 SPHEREx가 탐구할 세 가지 주요 과학 주제인 우주 팽창, 은하의 진화, 성간 얼음에 대해 설명합니다. 크레딧: NASA[{” attribute=””>JPL-Caltech

For example, NASA’s recently launched James Webb Space Telescope will target individual exoplanets (planets outside our solar system), measuring their size, temperature, weather patterns, and makeup. But do exoplanets, on average, form in environments that are conducive to life as we know it? With SPHEREx, scientists will measure the prevalence of life-sustaining materials like water that reside in icy dust grains in the galactic clouds from which new stars and their planetary systems are born. Astronomers believe the water in Earth’s oceans, thought to be essential to life starting on Earth, originally came from such interstellar material.

“It’s the difference between getting to know a few individual people, and doing a census and learning about the population as a whole,” said Beth Fabinsky, deputy project manager for SPHEREx at JPL. “Both types of studies are important, and they complement each other. But there are some questions that can only be answered through that census.”

SPHEREx and Webb differ not only in their approach to studying the sky but in their physical parameters. Webb is the largest telescope to ever fly in space, with a 21.3-foot (6.5-meter) primary mirror to capture the highest-resolution images of any space telescope in history. The observatory protects its sensitive instruments from the Sun’s blinding light with a sunshield that’s as big as a tennis court. SPHEREx, on the other hand, has an 8-inch primary mirror and a sunshield that is just 10.5 feet (3.2 meters) across.

READ  극지방에서 녹는 얼음은 이제 대규모로 지각에 미묘한 변화를 일으키고 있습니다.

But both observatories will collect infrared light – wavelengths outside the range that human eyes can detect. Infrared is sometimes called heat radiation because it is emitted by warm objects, which is why it’s used in night vision equipment. The two telescopes will also both use a technique called spectroscopy to break infrared light into its individual wavelengths, or colors, just like a prism breaks sunlight into its component colors. Spectroscopy is what enables both SPHEREx and Webb to reveal what an object is made of, because individual chemical elements absorb and radiate specific wavelengths of light.

In order to pursue big-picture questions, the SPHEREx team first had to answer more practical ones, such as whether the instrument on board could survive the environment in space, and if all its components could be packed together and operate as a system. Last month, the team’s final plans were approved by NASA, a step that the agency calls critical design review or CDR. This marks a major milestone for the mission on the way to launch.

“COVID continues to be a big challenge for us in developing new space projects. Everything the country went through over the past year, from supply chain disruptions to working at home with kids, we’ve gone through as well,” said SPHEREx Principal Investigator James Bock, who is a scientist at JPL and Caltech in Pasadena, California. “It’s really incredible to be part of a team that has handled these difficulties with enthusiasm and a seemingly unlimited supply of determination.”

More About the Mission

SPHEREx is managed by JPL for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The mission’s principal investigator is based at Caltech, which manages JPL for NASA and will also develop the payload in collaboration with JPL. Ball Aerospace in Boulder, Colorado, will supply the spacecraft. The Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI) is an instrument and science partner for the mission. Data will be processed and archived at IPAC at Caltech. The SPHEREx science team includes members from 10 institutions across the U.S. and South Korea.

READ  과학자들은 문어가 방금 삶을 살았을 때 뇌파를 기록했습니다.

답글 남기기

이메일 주소는 공개되지 않습니다. 필수 필드는 *로 표시됩니다

You May Also Like

Covid로 인한 검은 곰팡이 사례가 델리 병원에서보고되었습니다

“지난 이틀 동안 우리는 6 건의 점막 질환을 받았습니다.”라고 Sir Ganga Ram…

화성 : 중국, 구롱 로버가 찍은 새로운 이미지 공개

중국 신화에서 불의 신의 이름을 딴 탐사차 Zhurong은 Utopia Planitia 지역에 착륙했습니다.…

과학자들은 공룡 내부에서 포유류의 발을 발견, 화석 최초

의 예 마이크로 랩터 포유류의 발에 숨어 있습니다.설명: 랄프 아타나시아 고생물학 자들은…

틱을 앓고 있는 10대 소녀들에게는 한 가지 공통점이 있었습니다.

(보고자) – 약 10년 전 북부 뉴욕에서 10대 소녀 그룹 설명할 수…