NASA’s SPHEREx Observatory Maps Interstellar Ice in Milky Way
NASA’s SPHEREx Observatory Maps Interstellar Ice in Milky Way

An observation made by NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization, and Ices Explorer) shows the chemical signatures of water ice (shown in bright blue) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (orange) in Cygnus X, one of the most active and turbulent regions of star birth in our Milky Way galaxy. The […]

‘Interstellar Glaciers’: NASA’s SPHEREx Maps Vast Galactic Ice Regions
‘Interstellar Glaciers’: NASA’s SPHEREx Maps Vast Galactic Ice Regions

NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization, and Ices Explorer) mission has mapped interstellar ice at an unprecedented scale. Covering regions in our Milky Way galaxy more than 600 light-years across, the ice was found inside giant molecular clouds — vast regions of gas and dust where dense clumps of […]

How Open NASA Data on Comet 3I/ATLAS Will Power Tomorrow’s Discoveries
How Open NASA Data on Comet 3I/ATLAS Will Power Tomorrow’s Discoveries

The interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS will soon leave our solar system, never to return, but the observations of the comet will live on in NASA’s public data archives. More than a dozen NASA science missions turned their instruments to observe the comet, which is only the third identified object to be visiting our solar system from […]