The Search for Life

NASA’s SPHEREx Takes First Images, Preps to Study Millions of Galaxies – NASA

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NASA’s SPHEREx Takes First Images, Preps to Study Millions of Galaxies – NASA

Processed with rainbow hues to represent a range of infrared wavelengths, the new pictures indicate the astrophysics space observatory is working as expected. NASA’s SPHEREx (short for Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) has turned on its detectors for the first time in space. Initial images from the … Read more

NASA’s Curiosity Rover Detects Largest Organic Molecules on Mars

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NASA’s Curiosity Rover Detects Largest Organic Molecules on Mars

Researchers analyzing pulverized rock onboard NASA’s Curiosity rover have found the largest organic compounds on the Red Planet to date. The finding, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests prebiotic chemistry may have advanced further on Mars than previously observed. Scientists probed an existing rock sample inside Curiosity’s Sample Analysis … Read more

Cosmic Mapmaker: NASA’s SPHEREx Space Telescope Ready to Launch – NASA

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Cosmic Mapmaker: NASA’s SPHEREx Space Telescope Ready to Launch – NASA

NASA’s latest space observatory is targeting a March 8 liftoff, and the agency’s PUNCH heliophysics mission is sharing a ride. Here’s what to expect during launch and beyond. In a little over a day, NASA’s SPHEREx space telescope is slated to launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. … Read more

Why NASA’s SPHEREx Mission Will Make ‘Most Colorful’ Cosmic Map Ever – NASA

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Why NASA’s SPHEREx Mission Will Make ‘Most Colorful’ Cosmic Map Ever – NASA

The space telescope will detect over 100 colors from hundreds of millions of stars and galaxies. Here’s what astronomers will do with all that color. NASA’s SPHEREx mission won’t be the first space telescope to observe hundreds of millions of stars and galaxies when it launches no later than April 2025, but it will be … Read more

NASA Awards Advance Technologies for Future Habitable Worlds Mission – NASA

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NASA Awards Advance Technologies for Future Habitable Worlds Mission – NASA

NASA announced Friday it selected three industry proposals to help develop technologies for future large space telescopes and plan for the agency’s Habitable Worlds Observatory mission concept, which could be the first space telescope designed to search for life outside our solar system. The mission would directly image Earth-like planets around stars like our Sun … Read more

NASA Puts Next-Gen Exoplanet-Imaging Technology to the Test – NASA

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NASA Puts Next-Gen Exoplanet-Imaging Technology to the Test – NASA

A cutting-edge tool to view planets outside our solar system has passed two key tests ahead of its launch as part of the agency’s Roman Space Telescope by 2027. The Coronagraph Instrument on NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will demonstrate new technologies that could vastly increase the number of planets outside our solar system … Read more