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NASA's next "great observatory" begins mission to widen our view of the Universe
Confirmed
In Short: NASA's $4.3 billion Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, formerly known as WFIRST, has launched to study dark energy and dark matter, expanding on the work of the Hubble and Webb telescopes.
The Roman telescope, equipped with a 300-megapixel camera and a refurbished spy mirror, is NASA's next great observatory and will be the second NASA-led astrophysics mission to launch this century.
Cosmologists are eager to learn more about dark energy, which makes up about 70 percent of the cosmos and is responsible for the acceleration of the Universe’s expansion.
From its vantage point at the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point, Roman will study the effects of dark matter, a mysterious substance that pervades the universe and holds galaxies together.
The telescope is expected to shed new light on the nature of dark matter, dark energy, and the structure of the universe itself, as well as accelerate the discovery of potentially habitable planets outside our solar system.
The Roman telescope will extend the vision of NASA’s other famous observatories, providing a field of view 100 times wider than the Hubble Space Telescope and complementing the groundbreaking work of the James Webb Space Telescope.
What's confirmed
- The Roman telescope, equipped with a 300-megapixel camera and a refurbished spy mirror, is NASA's next great observatory and will be the second NASA-led astrophysics mission to launch this century.
- Cosmologists are eager to learn more about dark energy, which makes up about 70 percent of the cosmos and is responsible for the acceleration of the Universe’s expansion.
- From its vantage point at the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point, Roman will study the effects of dark matter, a mysterious substance that pervades the universe and holds galaxies together.
- The telescope is expected to shed new light on the nature of dark matter, dark energy, and the structure of the universe itself, as well as accelerate the discovery of potentially habitable planets outside our solar system.
- The Roman telescope will extend the vision of NASA’s other famous observatories, providing a field of view 100 times wider than the Hubble Space Telescope and complementing the groundbreaking work of the James Webb Space Telescope.
What's still developing
- “This is a big spacecraft,” said Denton Gibson, NASA’s launch director for the Roman mission.
- NASA announced in 2020 that the next great observatory, up until then known as the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), would be named in honor of Roman.
- “Roman’s large field of view and fast survey speeds will reveal untold cosmic objects while shining a light on dark energy and dark matter,” Fox said.
- The rocket sent the observatory toward an observation post around the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point, a gravitational balance point nearly a million miles (1.5 million kilometers) from Earth.
- Ground teams will activate and calibrate the observatory during the transit, and scientists aim to have the first science images ready for publication by the end of the year.
- These facilities enable researchers to validate new instruments, algorithms, and wavefront-control techniques before they are deployed on space missions.
- Combining theoretical research and observations to support NASA missions and enhance their scientific return.
- Developing models and analysis techniques to interpret observations from missions such as Kepler, TESS, Hubble, and Webb.