NASA's Roman Telescope vs. Webb: the telescope that will map a billion galaxies
8 hours ago
- #Dark Energy
- #Space Telescope
- #Exoplanets
- The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will launch on August 30, 2026, from Kennedy Space Center on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy.
- Roman features a 2.4-meter mirror, similar to Hubble's, but with a camera 100 times wider, enabling surveys 1,000 times faster than Hubble.
- It will map over a billion galaxies and find up to 200,000 exoplanets, focusing on dark energy, dark matter, and planetary demographics.
- Roman includes an active coronagraph that can detect planets 100 million times fainter than their stars, a technology demonstration for future missions.
- The telescope will generate about 1.4 TB of data daily, with open access to all astronomers immediately after calibration.
- Roman will work synergistically with the James Webb Space Telescope, using wide surveys to identify targets for Webb's deep follow-up observations.