NASA’s Roman Telescope set to unlock dark energy and new worlds

Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope illustration. Picture: NASA. NASA is preparing to launch a new space telescope in a mission designed to tackle some of the universe’s biggest mysteries, from dark matter and dark energy to the discovery of thousands of new planets.

The telescope, named the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, is undergoing final preparations ahead of a launch set to take place from Florida’s Kennedy Space Centre in late August. The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will study how the universe began, what it is made of and how it has evolved over time. Named after NASA’s first chief astronomer, the ‘mother of the Hubble Space Telescope,’ the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will have a field of view at least 100 times larger than Hubble’s, potentially measuring light from a billion galaxies in its lifetime.

“This observatory will also be able to block starlight to directly see exoplanets and planet-forming disks, complete a statistical census of planetary systems in our galaxy, and settle essential questions in the areas of dark energy, exoplanets, and infrared astrophysics,” NASA said. To make Roman’s sensitive measurements possible, the telescope will observe from a vantage point about 930,000 miles (1.5 million km) away from Earth in the direction opposite the Sun. “At this special place in space, called the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point, or L2, gravitational forces balance to keep objects in steady orbits with very little assistance,” NASA said.

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The telescope has a primary mirror that is 7.9 feet (2.4 meters) in diameter – the same size as the Hubble Space Telescope’s primary mirror. The Roman Space Telescope will have two instruments: the Wide Field Instrument, and the Coronagraph Instrument technology demonstration. The Wide Field Instrument will detect infrared light coming from the universe.

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