NASA and SpaceX successfully launched their SPHEREx and PUNCH missions into orbit Tuesday night from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, to "collect" data on the sun and millions of galaxies.

Riding with SPHEREx aboard the Falcon 9 were four small satellites that make up the agency's PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) mission, which will study how the Sun's outer atmosphere becomes the solar wind.