NASA Space Apps 2026 · Planet X and SPHEREx

Watch the sky move.

Planet X Hunter lets anyone flip between NASA SPHEREx’s infrared maps of the sky and catch stars, brown dwarfs and asteroids in motion.

Try Barnard’s Star Explore the sky globe

SPHEREx all-sky map, data release 1. Caltech/IPAC/NASA, IRSA.

SPHEREx photographs the whole sky every six months.

NASA’s infrared space telescope sweeps every direction twice a year. This globe is its real all-sky map.

In 102 colours of infrared.

Six detectors split the light into 102 narrow bands. Here is one small patch of sky, around Barnard’s Star, through each of them. Where its centre shows dark, the star is too bright to measure.

Flip between visits, and nearby things jump.

Barnard’s Star moved 10.4 north in a year. We measure 10.55 ± 0.12 a year; Gaia measured 10.41.

Subtract, and only change remains.

Take one visit from another to get a . Still stars cancel out; Barnard’s Star shows dark where it was, bright where it is.

Then measure it.

Every number here was measured by this project from SPHEREx images.

Barnard's Star
10.55 arcseconds a year, plus or minus 0.1210.55″
a year, ± 0.12″: the fastest march across the sky of any star
SPHEREx DR1 and QR3, 75 exposures. Gaia DR3: 10.41″.
WISE 0855−0714
10.3 sigma10.3σ
of its 7.98 ± 0.77″ shift in a year. One of the coldest known brown dwarfs.
SPHEREx DR1, May 2025 to May 2026. Predicted shift: 8.04″.
RW Aurigae
0.86 magnitudes, plus or minus 0.040.86 mag
fainter after one year, ± 0.04, for this young star
SPHEREx DR1 and QR3, 3.8–4.4 µm, Sept 2025 to Sept 2026.

NASA Space Apps 2026 · Planet X and SPHEREx

Watch the sky move.

Planet X Hunter lets anyone flip between NASA SPHEREx’s infrared maps of the sky and catch stars, brown dwarfs and asteroids in motion.

Try Barnard’s Star Explore the sky globe

Scroll for the story, or skip the story.

The SPHEREx all-sky map on a globe, the Milky Way running across it

SPHEREx photographs the whole sky every six months.

NASA’s infrared space telescope sweeps every direction twice a year. This globe is its real all-sky map.

Around Barnard’s Star: a patch a third as wide as the full Moon. SPHEREx D6, 4.4–5.0 µm, Aug 2025.

In 102 colours of infrared.

Six detectors split the light into 102 narrow bands. Here is one small patch of sky, around Barnard’s Star, through each of them. Where its centre shows dark, the star is too bright to measure.

Flip between visits, and nearby things jump.

Barnard’s Star moved 10.4 north in a year. We measure 10.55 ± 0.12 a year; Gaia measured 10.41.

Subtract, and only change remains.

Take one visit from another to get a . Still stars cancel out; Barnard’s Star shows dark where it was, bright where it is.

Then measure it.

Every number here was measured by this project from SPHEREx images.

Barnard's Star
10.55 arcseconds a year, plus or minus 0.1210.55″
a year, ± 0.12″: the fastest march across the sky of any star
SPHEREx DR1 and QR3, 75 exposures. Gaia DR3: 10.41″.
WISE 0855−0714
10.3 sigma10.3σ
of its 7.98 ± 0.77″ shift in a year. One of the coldest known brown dwarfs.
SPHEREx DR1, May 2025 to May 2026. Predicted shift: 8.04″.
RW Aurigae
0.86 magnitudes, plus or minus 0.040.86 mag
fainter after one year, ± 0.04, for this young star
SPHEREx DR1 and QR3, 3.8–4.4 µm, Sept 2025 to Sept 2026.

Two ways in.

The same SPHEREx data, for a quick look or a close one.

The SPHEREx all-sky map on a globe, the Milky Way running across it

Sky

Spin the globe, click any of 117,955 stars, and fly out through 3D space to see how far away they are.

Open the sky globe

Aug 2026

Lab

Blink the frames, measure how things move and change, and export what you find. Five targets are ready to open.

Or read about what the search has found and how it works.