NASA launches first space telescope named after a woman

NASA's newest telescope is designed to search the universe for the rare and unusual at a speed Hubble cannot match. The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launched from Cape Canaveral aboard a Falcon Heavy rocket operated by Elon Musk's SpaceX.

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It's going to find thousands of supernovae, tens of thousands of planets, billions of galaxies and tens of billions of stars.

Roman is expected to reach a point about 1.6 million kilometers from Earth in roughly a month. Its mission carries a budget of more than $4 billion, and NASA expects the first images to arrive in early 2027.

Astronomers will use the telescope to study black holes, exoplanets and exploding stars. NASA science mission director Nicky Fox said it could find thousands of supernovae, tens of thousands of planets, billions of galaxies and tens of billions of stars. Its wide field of view will allow it to survey the sky much faster than Hubble.

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It's going to be able to do things that we've never been able to do before with its massive field of view.

Roman can complete in one month observations that would have taken Hubble a century. Scientists expect it to produce more than 500 terabytes of data each year, compared with roughly 400 terabytes collected by Hubble over more than three decades.

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Roman's vast reach will allow us to find the weird, the rare and the unusual.

The telescope honors Nancy Grace Roman, NASA's first chief of astronomy, who served during the 1960s and 1970s. It is the agency's first space telescope named after a woman. Former NASA scientist Ed Weiler called the recognition long overdue and said Roman would be proud. The mission launched nearly a year ahead of schedule and within budget.

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This is very, very fitting. I think Nancy would be very proud.