NASA’s SPHEREx Mission Maps Water Ice Throughout Cygnus X

An observation by NASA’s 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 star birth regions in our Milky Way galaxy.

One of several maps of molecular clouds made by SPHEREx, this observation is detailed in a study published April 15, 2026 in The Astrophysical Journal. The study supports the hypothesis that interstellar ice forms on the surface of tiny dust particles no larger than the particles found in candle smoke. The results show that the densest regions of ice coincide with the densest regions of dust, and that the dust protects the ice from intense ultraviolet radiation emitted by newborn stars.

Figure A shows the same region, but in three different wavelengths to which the colors green, blue and red are assigned. This SPHEREx observation highlights the dark, dusty bands that protect water molecules from the intense radiation generated by newborn stars.

Although space telescopes such as NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and the agency’s retired Spitzer have detected water, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and other icy molecules throughout our galaxy, the SPHEREx observatory is the first infrared mission specifically designed to find such molecules throughout the sky, via the mission’s large-scale spectral survey.

Operated by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, the SPHEREx observatory was launched on March 11, 2025 and has the unique ability to view the sky in 102 colors, each representing a different wavelength of infrared light that offers distinctive information about galaxies, stars, planet-forming regions and other cosmic features. By the end of 2025, SPHEREx had produced the first of four all-sky infrared maps of the universe, plotting the positions of hundreds of millions of galaxies in 3D to help answer major questions about the cosmos, including those about the origins of water and life.

The mission is managed by JPL for the agency’s Astrophysics Division within the Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The telescope and space bus were built by BAE Systems in Boulder, Colorado. The scientific analysis of the SPHEREx data is being conducted by a team of scientists from 13 institutions in the United States, South Korea, and Taiwan, led by principal investigator Jamie Bock, based at Caltech with a joint appointment at JPL, and Olivier Doré, JPL project scientist. The data is processed and archived at Caltech’s IPAC in Pasadena, which manages JPL for NASA. The SPHEREx dataset is freely available to scientists and the public.

For more information on the SPHEREx mission, visit: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/spherex/