NASA Space Apps · Planet X & SPHEREx

Explore the infrared sky mapped by SPHEREx

An interactive map built on SPHEREx Data Release 1. Pan across the whole sky in 2D or 3D, scan its 102 infrared bands, rewind the sky 14,000 years, and open 360° views of stars, planets, galaxies and all 88 constellations.

Open the Sky ExplorerHow it works ↓
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The Sky Explorer inside the Saturn sphere, with a hotspot card about Saturn's rings open

Built on real SPHEREx data 01 · How it works

102 infrared bands for every point on the sky

SPHEREx DR1 imagery streams straight from NASA/IPAC's archive. View it in color, one wavelength at a time, or switch to 2MASS.

102infrared bands

Find a diamond, fly there, step inside

Diamonds mark notable objects. Click once to fly there, again to open a 360° view, then orbit it or fly with W A S D.

One map of the whole sky 02 · Star Map

SPHEREx Data Release 1, streamed live from NASA/IPAC's Infrared Science Archive. Pan, orbit and zoom like Google Maps, tilt into 3D, and hyperspace-jump between waypoints.

nasaspaceappsbigbang.vercel.app/map
The Star Map in 2D over Orion, with the Orion Nebula waypoint card open
  • Real SPHEREx dataDR1 all-sky map from IRSA, in all 102 colors, plus 2MASS, Spitzer and MSX layers
  • 2D ⇄ 3DTilt the map into 3D; let go near flat and it snaps back to 2D
  • TimelineSee the sky drift from 12,000 BCE to 14,000 CE
  • Blink real passesFlip between two SPHEREx images taken 6 months apart: stars stay put, planets jump
  • Export & shareSave any view as a PNG or share a link
  • 6 languagesStar names in English, Spanish, French, Chinese, Hindi, Arabic

How SPHEREx splits light 03 · Spectrum lab

Each dot is one of SPHEREx's 102 bands. Push a galaxy farther away and watch its light stretch, or switch to an icy cloud to see the fingerprints of frozen water and CO₂.

SPHEREx's 6 detector arrays (17 bands each)0.7511.52345µmBrightnessHβ[O III]HαPaαBand 1: 0.758 µmBand 2: 0.775 µmBand 3: 0.792 µmBand 4: 0.810 µmBand 5: 0.828 µmBand 6: 0.846 µmBand 7: 0.865 µmBand 8: 0.884 µmBand 9: 0.904 µmBand 10: 0.924 µmBand 11: 0.945 µmBand 12: 0.966 µmBand 13: 0.987 µmBand 14: 1.009 µmBand 15: 1.032 µmBand 16: 1.055 µmBand 17: 1.078 µmBand 18: 1.113 µmBand 19: 1.138 µmBand 20: 1.164 µmBand 21: 1.191 µmBand 22: 1.219 µmBand 23: 1.247 µmBand 24: 1.275 µmBand 25: 1.305 µmBand 26: 1.335 µmBand 27: 1.366 µmBand 28: 1.397 µmBand 29: 1.429 µmBand 30: 1.462 µmBand 31: 1.496 µmBand 32: 1.530 µmBand 33: 1.566 µmBand 34: 1.602 µmBand 35: 1.649 µmBand 36: 1.687 µmBand 37: 1.726 µmBand 38: 1.767 µmBand 39: 1.808 µmBand 40: 1.850 µmBand 41: 1.893 µmBand 42: 1.937 µmBand 43: 1.982 µmBand 44: 2.028 µmBand 45: 2.075 µmBand 46: 2.124 µmBand 47: 2.173 µmBand 48: 2.224 µmBand 49: 2.275 µmBand 50: 2.328 µmBand 51: 2.382 µmBand 52: 2.453 µmBand 53: 2.519 µmBand 54: 2.588 µmBand 55: 2.658 µmBand 56: 2.731 µmBand 57: 2.805 µmBand 58: 2.881 µmBand 59: 2.960 µmBand 60: 3.040 µmBand 61: 3.123 µmBand 62: 3.208 µmBand 63: 3.296 µmBand 64: 3.385 µmBand 65: 3.477 µmBand 66: 3.572 µmBand 67: 3.669 µmBand 68: 3.769 µmBand 69: 3.846 µmBand 70: 3.878 µmBand 71: 3.910 µmBand 72: 3.943 µmBand 73: 3.976 µmBand 74: 4.009 µmBand 75: 4.042 µmBand 76: 4.076 µmBand 77: 4.110 µmBand 78: 4.144 µmBand 79: 4.179 µmBand 80: 4.213 µmBand 81: 4.248 µmBand 82: 4.284 µmBand 83: 4.319 µmBand 84: 4.355 µmBand 85: 4.392 µmBand 86: 4.436 µmBand 87: 4.468 µmBand 88: 4.501 µmBand 89: 4.534 µmBand 90: 4.567 µmBand 91: 4.600 µmBand 92: 4.633 µmBand 93: 4.667 µmBand 94: 4.701 µmBand 95: 4.735 µmBand 96: 4.770 µmBand 97: 4.804 µmBand 98: 4.839 µmBand 99: 4.875 µmBand 100: 4.910 µmBand 101: 4.946 µmBand 102: 4.982 µm
True spectrum (what a perfect instrument would see) What SPHEREx measures: 102 band brightnesses

At z = 0.50, the light has traveled for 5.0 billion years and Hα has stretched to 0.98 µm, landing in band 13 of 102. Its position gives the galaxy's distance, which is how SPHEREx builds a 3D map.

Toy model for illustration. Band layout follows SPHEREx's published design.

SPHEREx at a glance 04 · The mission

NASA's SPHEREx splits near-infrared light into 102 colors for every point on the sky, building the first all-sky spectral map.

102infrared colors (spectral bands)
0.75–5 µmwavelength coverage
Every 6 mofull map of the sky
450M+galaxies to be measured
01

The first moments of the Universe

By mapping the 3D positions of hundreds of millions of galaxies, SPHEREx looks for faint patterns left by cosmic inflation, the burst of expansion in the first fraction of a second after the Big Bang.

02

The history of galaxies

SPHEREx measures the total glow of all galaxies, including ones too faint to see on their own, to trace how much light galaxies have made across cosmic time.

03

Water and ice in our galaxy

Spectra of millions of stars behind dusty clouds reveal frozen water, carbon dioxide and other ices, which are ingredients for planets and possibly for life.

Full name
Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer
Launched
March 11, 2025 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Vandenberg Space Force Base
Orbit
Sun-synchronous polar orbit, about 700 km above Earth
Telescope
20 cm aperture, passively cooled behind three cone-shaped photon shields
Survey
Four all-sky maps over a two-year prime mission
Managed by
NASA JPL, with Caltech leading the science

Planet X & SPHEREx 05 · Our project

The problem

SPHEREx is mapping the entire sky in 102 infrared colors, but its data lives in archives built for astronomers. Most people never get to see what it is exploring, or why it matters.

Our solution

Sky Explorer: a Google Maps-style map of the whole sky, streamed live from SPHEREx's real infrared data. Fly over it in 2D or 3D, switch between SPHEREx's 102 colors, step into 360° views of planets and constellations at their real distances, and blink two real SPHEREx passes taken six months apart to catch things that move: the same method you'd use to hunt for a Planet X.

How it works

  1. Fly over the whole sky, streamed live from SPHEREx data at NASA/IPAC IRSA, from a single star out to the entire Milky Way
  2. Switch SPHEREx colors, jump to exact RA/Dec coordinates, and blink real exposures six months apart to spot moving objects
  3. Step into 360° views of planets, stars and constellations, and fly through them in 3D
  4. Learn by doing: a one-minute tour, an AI sky guide, and an optional rescue mission that teaches coordinates with real data

Built with

  • Next.js
  • three.js
  • TypeScript
  • Vercel
  • SPHEREx DR1 (IRSA)
  • HYG star catalogue
  • JPL orbital elements
  • SIMBAD
  • Google Gemini

Team BigBang 06 · Team

  • AWeb
  • BFull Stack
  • CData & Sciences
  • DStyle & Presentation

Data & references 07 · Sources

Credits 08 · Data, code & AI

Data and acknowledgments

  • SPHERExThis project uses data products from the Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx), a joint project of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology, funded by NASA. Images: SPHEREx Data Release 1 all-sky maps and Level 2 exposures.
  • NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive (IRSA)This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive, which is funded by NASA and operated by the California Institute of Technology. All SPHEREx, 2MASS, Spitzer and MSX imagery is streamed from IRSA.
  • 2MASS, Spitzer and MSX2MASS is a joint project of the University of Massachusetts and IPAC/Caltech, funded by NASA and NSF. Spitzer was operated by JPL/Caltech for NASA. MSX data from the Midcourse Space Experiment, via IRSA.
  • HYG star database v4.1Star names, positions and distances by David Nash (astronexus), CC BY-SA 4.0. Derived from Hipparcos, Yale Bright Star and Gliese catalogues.
  • d3-celestialConstellation lines and star catalogue data by Olaf Frohn, BSD-3-Clause license.
  • SIMBADThis research has made use of the SIMBAD database, operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France (used by the sky guide to identify objects).
  • Planet positionsComputed from JPL's approximate Keplerian orbital elements (E. M. Standish). Good to a few arcminutes, so planet markers are drawn as rings.
  • What's illustratedPlanet and star surfaces in 360° views, Earth's globe, and the Milky Way's overall shape are illustrations, not photographs. Commander Ada Reyes and her ship in the rescue mission are fiction; every image and number she shows is real data.
  • SoftwareBuilt with Next.js, React, three.js and TypeScript, hosted on Vercel.

How we used AI

  • Coding assistantWe built much of the code with help from an AI coding assistant (Anthropic's Claude), directing the design and reviewing and testing what it produced.
  • Sky guideThe in-app sky guide answers questions with Google Gemini, grounded in NASA reference text and SIMBAD lookups. Its answers can be wrong, and it says so.
  • Data stays realNo images or measurements are AI-generated. Every SPHEREx image comes straight from NASA/IPAC IRSA.

Runs in your browser · no install · live data from IRSA

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