A telescope that could save us from extinction

A telescope launched toward the edge of space might seem like the secret objective of an alliance between Javier Milei and Donald Trump to save humanity from extinction. But in this article, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope becomes a device for peering into Argentina’s political future.

The observatory, launched on Aug. 30 aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy, will travel for 100 days to Lagrange Point 2, 1.5 million kilometres from Earth. From there, it will map planets beyond the solar system, dark energy and dark matter, as well as black holes. Its wide field of view will be 100 times larger than those of the still-active Hubble and James Webb telescopes, the article says.

For Argentines, the article jokes, black holes would be the most important feature. If the telescope could overcome the immense gravity that distorts spacetime and look beyond an event horizon, it might discover what awaits if Axel Kicillof reaches power and fulfils his promise of a “right to the future”. It could then report back and save the country from extinction.

The piece invokes Hugh Everett’s multiple-universe theory to suggest that even a visible future might not be fixed. Yet it quickly turns back to politics, arguing that the future promised by Kicillof, a former economy minister during Cristina Kirchner’s final presidential period, would actually be a return to the past. The article connects that idea, metaphorically, to the Einstein-Rosen wormhole.

Its political case rests on Buenos Aires province. Since democracy returned in 1983, the Peronist movement has governed the province for 35 of the past 42 years, apart from the administrations of Radical governor Alejandro Armendáriz and Pro leader María Eugenia Vidal. The article says Kicillof, who promises a future, already carries seven years in power linked to what it calls an ominous past. It then turns to the “barons” of Greater Buenos Aires, but the supplied text ends before completing that discussion.

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right to the future