After a 16-year journey, NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is finally ready for launch. The telescope, set to launch on August 30 at 7:26 AM Eastern Time aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy, promises to revolutionize cosmology and exoplanet science.
The $4.3 billion telescope has a primary mission of five years and will use a 300-megapixel infrared camera to map the universe. It will be sent to the Sun-Earth Lagrange L-2 point, 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, taking about 100 days to reach its destination.
Roman has been called 'Hubble on steroids' for its advanced capabilities. Although it has a mirror the same size as Hubble's, its field of view is 100 times wider, allowing it to observe targets in a single shot that would take Hubble days. This will make it ideal for studying dark energy by mapping billions of galaxies.
A particularly innovative instrument is the Coronagraphic Instrument (CGI), the most advanced coronagraph ever launched into space. This instrument will block starlight to directly observe orbiting exoplanets, and can also analyze their atmospheres with low-resolution spectroscopic capabilities.
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