Image workspace
Choose a patch of sky
Or try a test object
With this picture focused: plus and minus zoom, Shift with the arrow keys moves the view, and Enter measures at the centre of the view. The position at the centre is read out below the picture. Escape clears the mark.
Move the pointer over the image, or focus it with Tab, to read the pixel and the sky position (with the keyboard: at the centre of the view).
All detectors (average of each · click to blink)
Search this field
Use the first search for moving points. Use the distant-body search only for wide fields. Find everything creates a vetted source list.
Search results
Compares the dots in all images and lists the ones that moved.
How this search was run
How this search was run
Source measurements
Click a dot in the image. We measure its brightness in every frame: spectrum = brightness vs. wavelength (one colour per survey pass), light curve = brightness vs. date (one colour per detector).
Flux = background-subtracted sum in a 2-pixel aperture, in image units (not calibrated). A moving object is only inside the circle on the dates when it was there – that is expected, not an error.
Measurements by observation
Observation tools
Compare two observations side by side
Each cutout is labelled with its own observation time and wavelength range. Use the source inspector for flux measurements.
Keyboard: Space play/pause · ← → step one frame · + − zoom · 0 whole image · Shift+arrows move when zoomed in. Mouse: Ctrl+scroll zooms, drag moves. Panels: [ hides or shows the search panel, ] the inspector.
Further research
The tools below use the current field. Open a standalone page to explore the archive, run the simulator, or review published results.
Sky context
Other surveys at the same spot, with catalogued objects from SIMBAD. The dashed square is the field you are blinking. The box in the corner gives the sky coordinates under the cursor and, in brackets, the country that spot of the sky is straight above right now.
Planet X Lab
Two questions about a distant body. Which motion fits the positions of a candidate: standing still, a straight line, or a straight drift plus the swing of the Earth's orbit? And how likely is this search to find a body of a given distance and brightness in the images on screen? The second one adds synthetic bodies to the real images: it measures the search, it does not find anything.
Which motion fits?
Select a candidate in the list (Find movers, or Look for a distant body), then compare.
How likely is a distant body to be found?
Needs images of one detector from at least 3 survey passes with real pixels. A body that starts in the middle of the field stays inside it, over a year, beyond about 300 AU in a 30′ field and beyond about 1700 AU in a 5′ field (the column headings of the map give the swing for these images).
How this map was made
Where the image files are on the sky
An all-sky map of the image files this backend has (with real data: the author's SPHEREx cutouts). These are the footprints of files, not of the SPHEREx survey, which maps the whole sky: each circle is a field, the images of nearly the same place, read from the files themselves; nothing is drawn that was not read. The dashed line is the ecliptic (the path a distant planet of the Solar System follows), the dotted one the plane of the Milky Way. Right ascension grows to the left, as on a sky chart.
Needs the backend with real files (?data=api). The synthetic demo has no files, so it has no footprints, and none are invented.
Which survey images cover a place?
A live search of IRSA, the archive of the SPHEREx survey (its table spherex.plane), through the backend: the survey's images whose footprint touches a circle around a position, with the dates and detectors. It downloads no image and it is not the list of files on this computer (the map above). Find movers needs a place covered in at least 3 survey passes about 6 months apart; this tells you before you fetch anything.
Type a position (degrees, or 17h57m47s / +04°46′) and press Search IRSA. The values above are Barnard's Star, one of the test objects.
At true scale, east to the left, north up. The dashed circle is the search; the dot is its centre. Solid outlines cover the centre, faint ones only touch the circle.
The viewer shows only images the backend holds as files; the survey's images are not downloaded.
Show the images as a table
The Solar System, seen from above
Why would a distant body seem to swing? Because the Earth goes round the Sun: from two places of its orbit the same body is seen in two directions. Move the date, add a body in the direction of the field on screen and see the lines of sight from the Earth on the dates of the survey passes. Two modes, each named for what it is.
Show the positions as a table
Explain the selected candidate
An explainer that says only what was measured. Every sentence is followed by the ids of the measured values it is made of, and a check refuses any sentence that holds a number that is not one of them. No language model is used: the sentences are written by rules from the numbers, so it works without a key or a network and sends nothing anywhere.
The measured values it can use (the evidence)
Text analysis: the images, the dots and the candidates as tables
The same data as the picture, with no picture: every image, every dot the search found (position, S/N, the error of the position, warnings) and every candidate with its status. It is for a screen reader and the keyboard, and for anyone who wants to cite or check a number. Each table can be saved as CSV, with a first line that says whether the data are real or synthetic.
Load a field first, then press the button. It finds the dots again with the same detector the searches use; it changes nothing on the picture.
What the data are
Images
Dots
Candidates
Reproducibility bundle
A small JSON file that lets someone else check what was done: the field and detector, the version of every algorithm, the settings of the last search, a SHA-256 hash of the pixels of every image (it proves the same data without publishing a pixel), the images' dates and wavelengths, the candidates, and a link and a command to replay it. It holds no pixel, no file path and no address of this computer; a bundle that fails that check is not saved. It cannot say which IRSA product each cutout came from (the backend does not report it): that field is empty and says why.
Load a field, run Find movers if you want its settings in the file, then press the button.
About the project
Spot what moves in the infrared sky
NASA Space Apps 2026 · Planet X and SPHEREx
SPHERExBlink
Flip through the infrared sky over time — things that move, stand out.
Start exploringIllustration, not SPHEREx data
SPHEREx Blink lets you pick a spot on the sky and flip through infrared images of it taken on different dates. Stars stay put. Things that move or change brightness stand out.
- Pick a targetType coordinates or choose one of the five test objects.
- Blink and compareFlip through the dates, or switch to Difference, Stack and Trail.
- MeasureClick a source to see its spectrum and light curve.
- Check what is knownOpen the sky map to see catalogued objects around it.
Why look for movers?
Nearby brown dwarfs, fast stars, asteroids and comets reveal themselves by changing position between observations. The same blinking method found Pluto in 1930, and it is how astronomers search for undiscovered worlds such as the hypothetical “Planet X”.
About the data
The default workspace uses synthetic data that imitates observations. The backend can serve local FITS files. Check the data-source badge for the current field. The real SPHEREx images are public at NASA/IPAC IRSA, and the real-data results page shows earlier measurements (numbers and charts only, no images).
Built for a challenge
Made for the NASA Space Apps Challenge 2026, “Planet X and SPHEREx”, with AI assistance (Claude Code). The pictures in the header and background are generated artwork, not telescope images.