NASA launches Roman telescope to chart thousands of exoplanets
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NASA has launched its new flagship observatory, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, beginning a multi-year mission to produce an unprecedented map of the cosmos and probe some of physics' biggest unanswered questions. The telescope lifted off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, with President Donald Trump saying at a NASA ceremony that it "will help unlock the secrets of the universe." Named after astronomer Nancy Grace Roman, known as the "Mother of Hubble", the mission is expected to build the most comprehensive catalogue of astronomical objects ever assembled, working alongside the James Webb Space Telescope, Chile's Rubin Observatory and the European Space Agency's Euclid probe.
Standing over 12 metres tall and costing more than $4 billion (£3.2 billion) to develop over more than a decade, Roman boasts a field of view over 100 times larger than Hubble's and wider than Webb's, and will operate some 930,000 miles from Earth after a roughly 100-day journey. Scientists say it should identify thousands of exoplanets and tens of thousands of supernovae, while its infrared vision will let it peer billions of years into the universe's past to investigate dark matter and dark energy, which together are thought to make up about 95 percent of the cosmos. Mission scientist Julie McEnery noted that recent research suggests existing models of the universe's early expansion could be flawed, something Roman's observations may help to test.
- NASA's Roman Space Telescope launched via SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket
- Will map thousands of exoplanets and supernovae, study dark matter/energy
- Field of view over 100 times larger than Hubble's, cost over $4bn
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Roman is a new space telescope that NASA has just sent into orbit, joining a small group of powerful observatories already studying the universe, including the Hubble and James Webb telescopes, the Rubin Observatory in Chile, and Europe's Euclid probe. What sets it apart is its unusually wide field of view, letting it scan much larger patches of sky in one go than earlier instruments, which makes it well suited to surveying huge numbers of stars, galaxies and planets outside our solar system, known as exoplanets.
The mission is led by NASA and named after Nancy Grace Roman, an astronomer regarded as instrumental in getting Hubble built. It cost more than $4 billion and launched on a SpaceX rocket, with a lengthy journey ahead before it settles into position far from Earth to begin its work.
Scientists hope Roman's data will help answer some of the biggest open questions in astronomy, such as how common planetary systems like ours are, and will contribute to research into dark matter and dark energy, two mysterious forces thought to shape how the universe has expanded and holds together.
More coverage
- BBC Science — Nasa launches powerful new space telescope to explore mysteries of the Universe
- The Verge — The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launches to study dark matter and dark energy
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Originally published by Daily Mail as “Tense launch for NASA’s new ultra-powerful $4.3bn telescope: ‘It’s going to find tens of thousands of planets’”.