Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Archives

July 23, 2022July 23, 2022 by Matt Williams

Nancy Grace Roman Will be Launching on a Falcon Heavy Rocket

Artist's impression of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, named after NASA’s first Chief of Astronomy. When launched later this decade, the telescope should make a significant contribution to the study of FFPs. Credits: NASA

In 2026, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (RST) – aka. the “Mother of Hubble” – will take to space and begin addressing some of the deepest mysteries of the Universe. This will include capturing the deepest field images of the cosmos, refining measurements of the Hubble Constant (aka. Hubble’s Law), and determining the role of Dark Matter and Dark Energy in the evolution of the cosmos. Alongside its next-generation partner, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the RST will acquire infrared images with over 200 times the surveying power of its predecessor with the same rich level of detail.

On Tuesday, July 19^th, NASA announced that it had awarded SpaceX with a Launch Services (NLS) II contract to provide the rocket that will deploy the RST mission to space. As specified in the NLS II, the launch will take place in October 2026 (May 2027, at the latest) and consist of a Falcon Heavy rocket transporting the RST from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center to orbit. This indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract is valued at approximately $255 million and covers the launch and other mission-related costs.

March 25, 2022March 25, 2022 by Evan Gough

NASA’s Roman Mission Might Tell Us if the Universe Will Tear Itself Apart in the Future

The concept of accelerating expansion does get you wondering just how much it can accelerate. Theorists think there still might be a chance of a big crunch, a steady-as-she-goes expansion or a big rip. Or maybe just a little rip?

NASA’s Nancy Gracy Roman Space Telescope won’t launch until 2027, and it won’t start operating until some time after that. But that isn’t stopping excited scientists from dreaming about their new toy and all it will do. Who can blame them?

A new study examines the Roman Space Telescope’s power in detail to see if it can help us answer one of our most significant questions about the Universe. The question?

Will the Universe keep expanding and tear itself apart in a Big Rip?

January 14, 2022January 14, 2022 by Evan Gough

Nancy Grace Roman Telescope Will do its Own, Wide-Angle Version of the Hubble Deep Field

This synthetic image visualizes what a Roman ultra-deep field could look like. The 18 squares at the top of this image outline the area Roman can see in a single observation, known as its footprint. The inset at the lower-right zooms into one of the squares of Roman's footprint, and the inset at the lower-left zooms in even further. The image, which contains more than 10 million galaxies, was constructed from a simulation that produced a realistic distribution of the galaxies in the universe. Image Credit: Nicole Drakos, Bruno Villasenor, Brant Robertson, Ryan Hausen, Mark Dickinson, Henry Ferguson, Steven Furlanetto, Jenny Greene, Piero Madau, Alice Shapley, Daniel Stark, Risa Wechsler

Remember the Hubble Space Telescope’s Deep Field and Ultra-Deep Field images?

Those images showed everyone that what appears to be a tiny, empty part of the sky contains thousands of galaxies, some dating back to the Universe’s early days. Each of those galaxies can have hundreds of billions of stars. These early galaxies formed only a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. The images inspired awe in the human minds that took the time to understand them. And they’re part of history now.

The upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (NGRST) will capture its own version of those historical images but in wide-angle. To whet our appetites for the NGRST’s image, a group of astrophysicists have created a simulation to show us what it’ll look like.

October 7, 2021October 11, 2021 by Matt Williams

Nancy Grace Roman Just Passed a Critical Design Review

High-resolution illustration of the Roman spacecraft against a starry background. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

By 2027, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope – or Roman Space Telescope (RST), for short – will take to space and build on the legacy of the venerable Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Combing a large primary mirror, a camera as sensitive as its predecessors, and next-generation surveying capabilities, Roman will have the power of “One-Hundred Hubbles.” It’s little wonder then why the telescope is named after Dr. Roman (1925 – 2018), NASA’s first Chief Astronomer and the “Mother of Hubble.”

As part of its journey towards realization, this next-generation space telescope recently passed a crucial milestone. This would be the all-important Mission Critical Design Review (CDR), signaling that all design and developmental engineering work is complete. With this milestone reached, the next-generation space telescope is now ready to move from the conceptual stage into the fabrication and assembly phase.

October 3, 2021October 4, 2021 by Brian Koberlein

Future Telescopes Could be Seeing the Wrong Planets

NASA’s Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) is now named the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, after NASA’s first Chief of Astronomy. Credits: NASA

We have discovered thousands of exoplanets in recent years, including some that are Earth-sized and potentially habitable. But we haven’t seen many of those worlds. Most of the exoplanets we’ve found have been discovered using the transit method, which involves watching the brightness of a star dip as a planet passes in front of it. We can learn the size and sometimes the mass from these dips, but we have no idea what the world looks like, or whether it has a breathable atmosphere.

June 18, 2021June 18, 2021 by Matt Williams

A New Technique for “Seeing” Exoplanet Surfaces Based on the Content of their Atmospheres

This artist’s impression shows the planet K2-18b, it’s host star and an accompanying planet in this system. K2-18b is now the only super-Earth exoplanet known to host both water and temperatures that could support life. UCL researchers used archive data from 2016 and 2017 captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and developed open-source algorithms to analyse the starlight filtered through K2-18b’s atmosphere. The results revealed the molecular signature of water vapour, also indicating the presence of hydrogen and helium in the planet’s atmosphere.

In November of 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will make its long-awaited journey to space. This next-generation observatory will observe the cosmos using its advanced infrared suite and reveal many never-before-seen things. By 2024, it will be joined the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (RST), the successor to the Hubble mission that will have 100 times Hubble’s field of view and faster observing time.

These instruments will make huge contributions to many fields of research, not the least of which is the discovery and characterization of extrasolar planets. But even with their advanced optics and capabilities, these missions will not be able to examine the surfaces of exoplanets in any detail. However, a team of the UC Santa Cruz (UCSC) and the Space Science Institute (SSI) have developed the next best thing: a tool for detecting an exoplanet surface without directly seeing it.

March 7, 2021March 7, 2021 by Matt Williams

Nancy Grace Roman Telescope is Getting an Upgraded new Infrared Filter

In 2025, the Nancy Grace Roman space telescope will launch to space. Named in honor of NASA’s first chief astronomer (and the “Mother of Hubble“), the Roman telescope will be the most advanced and powerful observatory ever deployed. With a camera as sensitive as its predecessors, and next-generation surveying capabilities, Roman will have the power of “One-Hundred Hubbles.”

In order to meet its scientific objectives and explore some of the greatest mysteries of the cosmos, Roman will be fitted with a number of infrared filters. But with the decision to add a new near-infrared filter, Roman will exceed its original design and be able to explore 20% of the infrared Universe. This opens the door for exciting new research and discoveries, from the edge of the Solar System to the farthest reaches of space.

March 2, 2021March 2, 2021 by Shawn DiCenza

Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Could Get A Starshade Of Its Own

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is getting closer and closer to its launch date in 2025. This Hubble-class wide-field infrared telescope is going to help astronomers discover the nature of dark energy, discover planets, and perform large area surveys of the night sky.

But even with its power, the telescope will be limited in its ability to examine planets.

A team of engineers is proposing to fly a follow-on mission to Nancy Grace: a Starshade. This petal-shaped spacecraft could fly in formation with the telescope, blocking the light from stars, and helping it see the fainter planets nearby.

An exceptional telescope gets an upgrade? That seems like a win-win.

January 14, 2021January 14, 2021 by Evan Gough

The Roman Space Telescope’s Version of the Hubble Deep Field Will Cover a 100x Larger Area of the Sky

This composite image illustrates the possibility of a Roman Space Telescope “ultra deep field” observation. In a deep field, astronomers collect light from a patch of sky for an extended period of time to reveal the faintest and most distant objects. This view centers on the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (outlined in blue), which represents the deepest portrait of the universe ever achieved by humankind, at visible, ultraviolet and near-infrared wavelengths. Two insets reveal stunning details of the galaxies within the field. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and A. Koekemoer (STScI) Acknowledgement: Digitized Sky Survey

Remember the Hubble Deep Field? And its successor the Hubble Ultra Deep Field? We sure do here at Universe Today. How could we forget them?

Well, just as the Hubble Space Telescope has successors, so do two of its most famous images. And those successors will come from one of Hubble’s successors, NASA’s Roman Space Telescope.

October 1, 2020October 1, 2020 by Evan Gough

A Rogue Earth-Mass Planet Has Been Discovered Freely Floating in the Milky Way Without a Star

An artist's impression of a rogue planet. Image Credit: By Interpott.nrw - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=83123717

If a solar system is a family, then some planets leave home early. Whether they want to or not. Once they’ve left the gravitational embrace of their family, they’re pretty much destined to drift through interstellar space forever, unbound to any star.

Astronomers like to call these drifters “rogue planets,” and they’re getting better at finding them. A team of astronomers have found one of these drifting rogues that’s about the same mass as Mars or Earth.