SPHEREx: An All-Sky Spectral Survey
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Mission Characteristics
| Lifetime: | 2025 - 2027 (planned) |
| Wavelength: | 0.75-1.1 microns, R=39 1.1-1.6 microns, R=41 1.6-2.4 microns, R=41 2.4-3.8 microns, R=35 3.8-4.4 microns, R=112 4.4-5.0 microns, R=128 |
| Area Coverage (planned): | 100% of sky |
| Instruments: | Wide Field Linear Variable Filter (LVF) Imaging Spectrograph |
| Funding Agency: | NASA |
| Contributing Institutions: | JPL, Caltech, RIT, Harvard/CFA, Arizona State, University of Arizona, Ohio State University, KASI, UC Irvine, Johns Hopkins, ASIAA |
| Acknowledgement: |
Please include the following acknowledgement in any published material that makes use of SPHEREx data products: "This publication makes use of data products from the Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx), which is a joint project of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology, and is funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration." |
| Canonical Papers: |
Mission: Bock et al (2026) Pipeline: Akeson et al (2026) Sky Simulator: Crill et al. (2025) Instrument & Calibration: Korngut et al. (2026) |
| SPHEREx Releases: | July 2025: First Quick Release Products available at IRSA October 2025: First reprocessed Quick Release Products (QR2) available at IRSA April 10, 2026: QR2 headers updated to correct PSF extension header error (see documentation for details) September 2026: First Quick Release 3 (QR3) Products available at IRSA |
IRSA Services - SPHEREx Releases
| SPHEREx Quick Release | Access QR2 and QR3 data |
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| SPHEREx Target List of Ice Sources (SPLICES) | Access SPLICES catalog |
| Comet 3I/ATLAS | Access SPHEREx Spectral Images of Comet 3I/ATLAS |
| Cloud Data Access | Access SPHEREx data available on AWS S3 cloud storage. |
SPHEREx Science Tools
| Spectrophotometry Tool | Extract spectra from SPHEREx Spectral Images using forced photometry. Read the Spectrophotometry Tool documentation for detailed usage instructions, inputs, and outputs. |
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| Mosaic Tool | Create custom multiwavelength mosaics from SPHEREx Spectral Images. |
| Cutout Tool | Extract spatial subsets from SPHEREx Spectral Image Multi-Extension FITS files. |
| Source Discovery Tool | Identify and characterize significant detected sources within a user defined region using SPHEREx data alone, without requiring positional priors. |
| Moving Object Search Tool (MOST) | Determine the orbit for a given solar system object then find SPHEREx images that covered the object's predicted positions at their observation epochs. |
IRSA Documentation - SPHEREx Releases
| Documentation | SPHEREx Explanatory Supplement |
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| SPHEREx Archive User Guide | SPHEREx Archive User Guide |
| Program Interfaces | Information on program-friendly data services |
| Spectral Calibrations | Access SPHEREx Spectral Channel Maps and Response Functions |
Other Resources
| SPHEREx website | SPHEREx Home Page |
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| Python Notebooks: Introduction | Introduction to SPHEREx Spectral Images |
| Python Notebooks: Cutouts | SPHEREx Spectral Image Cutouts |
| Python Notebooks: PSF | SPHEREx PSF in Spectral Image Cutouts |