Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
An observation made by NASA 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 image was released on April 15, 2026, along with a study detailing the observation.
One of the main goals of SPHEREx is to map the chemical signatures of various types of interstellar ice. This ice includes molecules such as water, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide, which are essential to the chemistry that allows life to develop. Researchers believe that these reservoirs of ice, attached to the surfaces of small dust grains, are where most of the water in the universe is formed and stored. The water in Earth’s oceans – and the ices on comets and other planets and moons in our galaxy – originate in these regions.
SPHEREx was launched on March 11, 2025, and has the unique ability to see the sky in 102 colors, each representing a different wavelength of infrared light that offers different information about galaxies, stars, planet-forming regions, and other cosmic features.
Read more about what SPHEREx found.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/IPAC/Hora et al.
