NASA launches missions to study universe’s origins, solar wind

By Beril Canakci

ISTANBUL (AA) - NASA has launched two missions to explore the universe’s origins and the Sun’s outer atmosphere, the agency announced on its website Tuesday.

The SPHEREx observatory and the PUNCH satellite constellation lifted off Tuesday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, US.

After multiple delays since February due to technical reviews and weather conditions, the spacecraft is now set to map the entire celestial sky four times over the next two years, collecting data on hundreds of millions of galaxies.

SPHEREx—short for Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer—will create a three-dimensional map of the sky, analyzing the light from hundreds of millions of galaxies. The data could offer insights into how the universe evolved after the Big Bang nearly 14 billion years ago.

NASA officials say the mission will measure the large-scale distribution of galaxies, helping scientists better understand cosmic inflation—a brief period of rapid expansion that shaped the early universe. SPHEREx will also search for water ice and other molecules that are critical for life within the Milky Way.

“Questions like ‘How did we get here?’ and ‘Are we alone?’ have fascinated humanity for centuries,” said James Fanson, SPHEREx project manager. “It’s remarkable that we now have the tools to start answering them.”

PUNCH is designed to track how the Sun’s corona expands into the solar wind, a continuous flow of charged particles that influences space weather. By monitoring these interactions, scientists hope to improve predictions of solar storms, which can disrupt satellites and power grids on Earth.

“The space between planets isn’t empty—it’s filled with turbulent solar wind,” said Craig DeForest, the mission’s principal investigator at the Southwest Research Institute.

“PUNCH will help us understand how these winds form and how they create space weather that affects us here on Earth.”

Both missions will operate in low Earth orbit, with SPHEREx managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and PUNCH led by the Southwest Research Institute.