NASA and Spacex have foreseen for tonight (US time) the launch of two missions: Spherex to study the origin of the universe and punch that will analyze the sun wind.
After various postponements due to technical problems, which now all seem solved, the NASA and Spacex they decided to launch tonight (when In Italy it will be 04:10 on Tuesday 11 March 2025) in terrestrial orbit, two long -awaited missions: Spherex and Punch. The launch will take place with a Falcon 9 rocket from the Space Launch Complex 4 East at the Vandenberg Space Force base in California. Here are what are the purposes of the two missions…
Spherex. (Spectr-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) It is a two -year spatial mission that promises to write an important chapter of the History of the universe. This innovative spatial telescope He will examine the whole sky in optical light and close infrared, revealing cosmic secrets so far inaccessible.
Spherex will have the task in fact, to collect data on over 450 million galaxies And 100 million stars in our Milky Way. Some of the galaxies are so far away that their light took 10 billion years to reach us, thus offering one direct gaze on the past of the universe.
Looking for life. Spherex will forget the Milky Way looking for water And organic molecules, the fundamental elements for life as we know it. Will examine i Star Vivaithe cradles where the stars are born, and protoplanetary recordswhere new worlds could form. Every six months, Spherex will complete a scan of the entire sky, creating a very detailed map in 102 different color gangs. This unprecedented resolution will greatly exceed existing celestial maps, offering a vision of the universe never seen before.
Shared results. The Spherex mission is led by Jamie Bock of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). The useful load was developed jointly by the Caltech and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of the NASA. THE data collected by Spherex will be made public through the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center, allowing scientists around the world to study them. In addition, Spherex will identify objectives of interest for future missions, such as the James Webb Space Telescope and the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope of NASA.
PUNCH. (Polarimeter to Unifythe Corona and Heliosphere) A mission consisting of four small satellites in low terrestrial orbit, designed to better study the sun and its impact on the sun system. In particular, Punch will focus on solar wind. The mission will in fact examine how The external atmosphere of the sunthe crown produces the sun wind, the flow of charged particles (over 300,000 tons of material to the second) which radiates from the sun.
The sun wind has an impact on everything in the sun system, including the earth. It causes, for example, the northern lights, but can also cause electric alterations to satellites or terrestrial networks.
Through the use of sophisticated on -board tools, the mission will be able to capture images of the sun crown with unprecedented precision. To better observe the solar crown aboard Punch there is the Narrow Field Imager (NFI), that is, a coronographer, that is, a tool that blocks the sunlight, highlighting only the crown. Punch will also help us understand how the sun wind creates and model the heliospherethe “bubble” of space surrounding the sun system and that there It protects from interstellar radiation.
