✅ Left on (infra)red. Using a specific infrared wavelength of 3.29 microns, NASA’s SPHEREx mission reveals a cloud of dust in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy near the Milky Way. This image, taken just weeks after SPHEREx launched in April 2025, represents the dust cloud in visible colors, as infrared light is invisible to the human eye. A key feature of the SPHEREx mission is spectroscopy—observing individual wavelengths of light from cosmic sources to reveal the composition of objects. Different chemical elements and molecules leave unique “signatures” based on the colors they absorb and emit. Spectroscopy can also help us measure how far away galaxies are, allowing scientists to map the locations of hundreds of millions of galaxies in 3D. To reveal more about our universe, the SPHEREx mission aims to map the entire sky in 102 infrared colors, or wavelengths of light. The spacecraft will map the entire sky four times over two years, helping us build a 3D map that uncover...