Hear this story Update: NASA is now targeting a launch for Friday, March 7. Find the latest information on the mission here. How did the universe begin? How do planets form and galaxies develop? Could life exist anywhere else in the cosmos? Questions that have long eluded astronomers could finally be answered with the launch of an advanced space telescope NASA has spent years developing. Once in orbit, the instrument known as SPHEREx will begin its complex hunt across hundreds of thousands of galaxies for signs of water that may form oceans on distant planets and moons while creating an intricate three-dimensional celestial map. The findings it beams back to Earth during its two-year mission could help astronomers solve age-old mysteries, including how life as we know it came to be after the big bang, the theoretical birth of the universe. The space telescope is able to detect more than 100 colors in both optical and near-infrared light, which, though not visible to the human eye, serves as a powerful investigatory tool, according to NASA. “We are the first mission to look at the whole sky in so many colors,” SPHEREx principal investigator Jamie Bock said in a statement. “Whenever astronomers look at the sky in a new way, we can expect discoveries.” Here are five things to know about SPHEREx mission, including what it is and when it launches. What is NASA's SPHEREx mission? Telescope to study origins of universe SPHEREx is an acronym that stands for a mouthful: Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer. The mission, though, is much more straightforward: to explore the origins of the universe. The instrument, which is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, will map the entire celestial sky in 102 infrared colors, illuminating not only our own Milky Way galaxy but another 450 million or so galaxies and stars. Some galaxies it will observe are so distant that their light has taken 10 billion years to reach Earth. By surveying the known universe in near-infrared light, SPHEREx should help astronomers solve some of the oldest astronomical mysteries. Although these colors aren’t visible to the human eye, scientists can use the data to learn about the physics that governed the universe less than a second after its birth. SPHEREx also will scour the Milky Way for signs of water. Of course, oceans and lakes don't exactly pool up and float freely in space. But scientists believe reservoirs of ice, frozen on the surface of interstellar dust grains, are where most of the water in our universe forms and resides. Life as we know it wouldn’t exist without basic ingredients such as water and carbon dioxide. For that reason, astronomers will use the mission to search the Milky Way for such life-sustaining ingredients within interstellar molecular clouds of gas where planets and stars form. The observatory is capable of pinpointing the location and number of these icy compounds in our galaxy, giving researchers a better sense of their abundance. When does the mission launch from California? SPHEREx is set to launch at 10:09 p.m. EST Sunday, March 2 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. Launches are always subject to change. Find the latest here. The space observatory will share a ride with NASA’s PUNCH mission (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere,) which will observe the sun’s corona as it transitions into the stream of charged particles known as the solar wind. How to watch SPHEREx launch Launch coverage will begin on NASA+, the space agency's new streaming service, at 9:15 p.m. NASA will also provide written updates on its SPHEREx blog. What is the SPHEREx telescope? At 8½ feet tall, the megaphone-shaped observatory is roughly the size of a backyard storage shed. The infrared telescope and its detectors have a distinct design of three cone-shaped layers of photon shields that allow it to operate at temperatures of minus 350 degrees Fahrenheit. The design is meant to protect the spacecraft from the heat of the Earth and the sun so it can't generate its own infrared glow, which could interfere with the faint light it hopes to detect from cosmic sources. Beneath the photon shields is a mirrored structure that can direct heat from the instrument into space. To keep itself cold, SPHEREx relies on an entirely passive cooling system, meaning no electricity or coolants are used while it's operating.