Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launches on mission to map dark matter and dark energy
NASA has successfully launched the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which will spend about three months traveling to its orbit beyond the Moon to survey the universe and study dark matter and dark energy. The mission reaches this milestone after years of funding uncertainty and a name change.
After years of funding struggles and a name change, NASA has successfully launched the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope into space. The spacecraft will now spend roughly three months traveling about one million miles to reach its orbit at the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point (L2), located beyond the Moon.
From that vantage point, Roman is set to conduct a survey of the universe unlike any before it. Its field of view is 100 times larger than Hubble's, and NASA says its 300-megapixel infrared camera will let it scan the sky 1,000 times faster than Hubble can.
A new tool for finding exoplanets
The telescope also carries a coronagraph instrument capable of blocking and masking the glare from distant stars. This will allow it to directly image exoplanets, including smaller, older and colder worlds that orbit close to their host stars and would otherwise be lost in the glare.
Mapping dark matter and dark energy
A central goal of the mission is to build detailed three-dimensional maps that help pin down how dark matter is distributed throughout the universe and narrow the list of candidates for what it might be made of. Using those same 3D scans alongside gravitational lensing measurements, Roman will also attempt to trace how dark energy has shaped the universe's evolution over time.
Nicky Fox, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, said in a press release that Roman will serve as a discovery machine, bringing humanity closer than ever to answering fundamental questions about the history of the cosmos.
