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NASA launches new telescope to map the cosmos
🇵🇰 Pakistan /Technology

NASA launches new telescope to map the cosmos

From Dawn · () English

Translated from English and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News Named sources Ongoing story
  • NASA launched the Roman Space Telescope from Florida aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket for a multiyear survey of the cosmos.
  • Roman will investigate dark matter and dark energy while searching for thousands of exoplanets and tens of thousands of supernovae.
  • Its wide-field infrared observations will complement the more powerful but narrower work of telescopes such as James Webb.

NASA’s new flagship telescope has begun a multiyear effort to produce a broad map of the universe and examine questions that remain unresolved in physics.

The Roman Space Telescope launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. The observatory stands more than 12 meters tall and took more than a decade to develop, at a cost exceeding $4 billion. NASA named it after Nancy Grace Roman, the US astronomer known as the “Mother of Hubble.”

will help unlock the secrets of the universe

— Donald TrumpThe US president described the telescope’s scientific ambition during a NASA headquarters ceremony.

Roman will travel to a vantage point 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, a journey expected to take about 100 days. Its field of view is more than 100 times wider than Hubble’s and also exceeds that of the James Webb Space Telescope, allowing it to survey large areas of the sky.

Roman will give the Earth a new atlas of the universe

— Jared IsaacmanThe NASA administrator used the phrase while unveiling the project to the press.

The mission aims to find thousands of exoplanets and tens of thousands of supernovae, the explosive deaths of massive stars. Its infrared instruments will detect light emitted billions of years ago, allowing scientists to study the distant past. NASA says the observations will help researchers examine dark matter and dark energy, which together are believed to account for about 95% of the universe.

US President Donald Trump said Roman “will help unlock the secrets of the universe.” NASA administrator Jared Isaacman described it as a new atlas of the universe, while technical manager Dave Content said it would create “the biggest catalog of astronomical objects anybody’s ever produced” and help scientists assess how common solar systems like ours are.

It will be the biggest catalog of astronomical objects anybody’s ever produced, and it will help us understand how common are solar systems like our own

— Dave ContentRoman’s technical manager described the scale and purpose of its survey.
About this summary

Originally published by Dawn in English. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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