NASA launches $4.3bn Roman Telescope to uncover universe’s hidden secrets

What the report says

NASA has launched the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, a $4.3bn observatory designed to study dark energy, dark matter and distant planets beyond the solar system. According to Al Jazeera, the spacecraft lifted off just after dawn on Sunday from Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. It is headed to Lagrange Point 2, about 1.6 million kilometres from Earth, where it will operate alongside the James Webb Space Telescope.

The mission is expected to last five years, with the possibility of five more if fuel reserves and future refuelling options allow. Roman is intended to conduct broad sky surveys, including a major study of more than 2 billion galaxies, and to identify thousands of exoplanets, supernovae and other cosmic objects. Scientists hope it will help explain how fast the universe is expanding and provide a statistical picture of planetary systems similar to our own.

Al Jazeera reported that the launch came ahead of schedule and within budget. The telescope is NASA’s first to be named for a woman, the late Nancy Grace Roman, who was an early leader in the agency’s astronomical work. The launch also adds a new wide-field instrument to a group of major observatories that includes Hubble, Webb, the European Space Agency’s Euclid mission and the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile.

The mission matters because it combines a large survey view with the ability to complement Webb’s deeper, narrower observations. In practical terms, scientists say Roman should help them find targets that other telescopes can examine in greater detail, potentially opening new answers about the structure and history of the universe.