Skip to content

NASA Chooses SPHEREx for Phase A Study

News Release • August 9th, 2017

Wonderful news! We learned today that NASA chose SPHEREx for a Phase A study! The SPHEREx team will receive $2M to carry out the nine-month study to refine the mission concept. NASA will make the final selection "by 2019." More details will be provided here as soon as they become available.

Recent News

NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization, and Ices Explorer) space telescope is shedding light on brown dwarfs, celestial objects that blur the line between stars and exoplanets. New findings published in The Astrophysical Journal show that these dark and cloudy worlds have chemically rich atmospheres not unlike the giant planets in our own solar...

Read More

The Rotary National Award for Space Achievement awarded their 2026 Stellar Award to JPL's SPHEREx team for their outstanding contributions to space science and technology.

Read More

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 matter collapse under gravity, giving birth to...

Read More

NASA’s SPHEREx mission turned its infrared gaze on interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS in December 2025, adding to the deep pool of information the agency has gathered on what is only the third such object to be discovered passing through our solar system.

Read More

The SPHEREx Mission Team wins the Sylvia A. Earle Award for Exploration Excellence.

Read More