Roman’s field of view is more than 100 times wider than Hubble’s, with a much faster camera|@NASARoman|X
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launched early Sunday aboard a SpaceX rocket, bound for an observation point 1 million miles away.
Named for NASA’s first chief astronomer, the telescope aims to shed light on dark energy and dark matter while searching for potentially Earth-like planets.
The telescope launched nearly a year ahead of schedule and within budget, although the $4.3 billion project narrowly avoided cancellation under proposed Trump administration cuts.
The Roman is equipped with spy satellite mirrors, a wide-field infrared camera, and an experimental coronagraph to block starlight.
Roman’s field of view is more than 100 times wider than Hubble’s, with a much faster camera. A single month of Milky Way observations by Roman would take Hubble a century to complete, per the Associated Press.
Roman will work alongside the Webb Space Telescope and other observatories to study supernovae, stars, planets, and billions of galaxies throughout its mission.