NASA's newest observatory is preparing for a two-year mission to create three-dimensional maps of the entire celestial body. SPHEREx is the abbreviation of Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer. It was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 8:10 pm Pacific time on March 11.

After a month of inspections, the 8.5-foot-tall, 10.5-foot-wide, 1,107-pound observatory will capture a complete three-dimensional map of more than 450 million galaxies every six months for two years. SPHEREx will use a technique called spectroscopy to separate the infrared light emitted by stars and galaxies into 102 colors. The resulting images can be both visually stunning and extremely useful, as color analysis can reveal details about the light source, including its composition and distance from Earth.

NASA said the mission will also measure the total collective glow of all galaxies throughout the universe, providing insights into how galaxies formed over time. Additionally, it will search our galaxy for traces of carbon dioxide, water and other basic ingredients that are the building blocks of life as we know it.

SPHEREx's survey work will build on the work of other telescopes that have mapped smaller parts of the sky in more detail, such as Hubble and James Webb.

Four small satellites also flew into space on SpaceX rockets with SPHEREx. The Polar Instrument Unifying the Corona and Heliosphere, or PUNCH, will study the interior of the solar system as well as the Sun's outer atmosphere, the corona, to better understand how its mass and energy are converted into the solar wind.

"The space between the planets is not empty," said Craig DeForest, the mission's principal investigator at Southwest Research Institute. "Instead, it is filled with turbulent solar winds that wash over the Earth. The PUNCH mission is designed to answer fundamental questions about how stars like the Sun generate stellar winds and how they trigger dangerous space weather events on Earth."