NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launch: What it will study and how it compares to Hubble, Webb | Explained

NASA is set to launch the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope aboard SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket. The liftoff is targeted for 7:26 am ET, with a backup opportunity available on Monday, August 31 at 7:22 am ET. Here's all you need to know about the mission:

What is Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope?

NASA is launching the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope to study dark energy and dark matter to help scientists unravel mysteries of the universe.

Roman will be joining other flagship astrophysics missions like Hubble Space Telescope and Webb Telescope, adding to the legacy of deep space study.

Its final destination is Sun-Earth Lagrange Point 2. Once it's there, Roman will have an unobstructed view of the universe, and with a wide field of view at least 100 times larger than the Hubble Space Telescope.

What will Roman telescope study?

Roman will be able to map billions of galaxies, investigate dark energy and dark matter, discover new exoplanets, study black holes, and explore objects from our own solar system to the edge of the observable universe

According to Cornell University, NASA’s next flagship observatory, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, will scan vast swaths of sky, and promises to revolutionise "our understanding of dark matter and dark energy while discovering some 100,000 exoplanets."

The minimum five-year survey mission also includes a technology demonstration that will attempt a first in space: direct imaging of exoplanets in visible light wavelengths.

NASA says that this observatory will be able to block starlight to directly see exoplanets and planet-forming disks.

Cornell faculty member Dmitry Savransky said capturing pictures of these previously hidden, Jupiter-like planets, marks a first step toward directly imaging potentially habitable Earth-like planets.

As a principal investigator supporting Roman’s state-of-the-art coronagraph, Savransky has helped determine the targets that the instrument will study and when best to observe them.

“If we are successful, it would be incredibly compelling and exciting scientifically, because this will be a unique dataset that literally doesn’t exist,” said Savransky, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering in the Cornell Duffield College of Engineering, and of astronomy in the College of Arts and Sciences. “No other space observatory has this capability.”

What's in the name?

Roman is named after Dr. Nancy Grace Roman (1925- 2018), NASA’s frst chief astronomer and one of the architects of the agency’s modern science program.

While she’s known as the “mother” of the Hubble Space Telescope, Dr Roman played an even broader role as the driving force behind NASA’s entire Great Observatories program, which included Hubble along with the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the retired Compton Gamma Ray Observatory and Spitzer Space Telescope.

Where will Roman be located in space?

Roman will orbit 1 million miles away at the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point (L2), the same orbit as NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.

Why this point? At L2, the gravity of the Sun and Earth, together with an object’s motion around the Sun, let it stay lined up with Earth as they orbit, allowing Roman to have a relatively steady orbit without using much fuel, NASA explained.

This location also offers exceptionally stable optical performance and a constant, unobstructed view of a wide swath of the sky.

How long will Roman stay in space?

Roman will have a primary mission lifetime of five years and is designed to support an additional five-year extended mission.

Fuel is expected to be the mission’s life-limiting resource, and while NASA does not currently have the ability to service observatories at L2, Roman is designed to be refuelable.

Roman will work in tandem with many other NASA-led and international missions to provide the most complete view of our universe yet. Here's how:

Roman and Hubble

1. Roman telescope's images will have the same crisp infrared resolution as Hubble’s, but each one will capture a patch of the sky at least 100 times larger.

2. Over the first five years of observations, Roman will image

more than 50 times as much sky as Hubble covered in 30 years and perform surveys that would take Hubble hundreds or even thousands of years.

3. Hubble could follow up on interesting targets within

Roman’s panoramas using infrared, visible, and ultraviolet light, providing a more comprehensive view of individual objects and conducting studies that only Hubble can currently do.

Roman and James Webb Space Telescope

1. Roman and James Webb Space Telescope view the universe in different but complementary ways, like wide-angle and zoom lenses.

2. Roman’s surveys will offer a broad view of cosmic ecosystems and pinpoint rare objects. Webb can use its narrower view but more powerful vision to follow up on those uncommon objects for even

more detailed observations, and Roman can view regions around objects Webb has observed to offer context.

3. Together, the two observatories will reveal extraordinary new information about our universe such as primordial galaxies, black holes, and planets beyond our solar system.

Roman and Euclid

1. Euclid and Roman will both orbit at L2 and are designed to study dark energy and dark matter, but using complementary approaches.

2. Both missions will make 3D maps of the universe to answer fundamental questions about the history and structure of the universe.

3. Euclid, an ESA (European Space Agency) mission with key contributions from NASA, will observe approximately 15,000 square degrees, or about a third of the sky, in both infrared and optical wavelengths of light, but with less detail than Roman. It will peer back 10 billion years to when the universe was about 3 billion years old.

Roman’s largest core survey will probe the universe to a much greater depth and precision, but over a smaller area — 5,100 square degrees, or about 12% of the sky. Its sharp infrared vision will unveil the cosmos when it was 2 billion years old, revealing a larger number of fainter galaxies.

4. Since their survey areas will overlap, scientists can use Roman’s higher-quality data to apply corrections to Euclid’s (and extend them over Euclid’s much larger area).