♦ A NASA telescope named SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) was launched into space from California for a mission to explore the origins of the universe and to

scour the Milky Way galaxy for hidden reservoirs of water, a key ingredient for life.

♦ This was carried aloft by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

♦ During its planned two-year mission, the observatory will collect data on more than 450 million galaxies, as well as more than 100 million stars in the Milky Way.

♦ It will create a three-dimensional map of the cosmos in 102 colors – individual wavelengths of light – and will study the history and evolution of galaxies.

♦ The mission aims to deepen the understanding of a phenomenon known as cosmic inflation, referring to the universe’s rapid and exponential expansion from a single point in a

fraction of a second after the Big Bang that occurredroughly 13.8 billion years ago.