This month could see the launch a new space telescope that aims to travel 1-million miles and record billions of galaxies.
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope could launch from the Kennedy Space Station as early as 30 August aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy.
The Roman observatory aims to travel to the Sun-Earth Lagrange point 2, or L2, about 1-million miles from Earth, where the Sun’s and Earth’s gravity balance out.
Named after NASA’s first chief astronomer, the “mother of the Hubble Space Telescope”, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will have a field of view at least 100-times larger than Hubble’s, potentially measuring light from 1-billion galaxies in its lifetime.
The observatory will also be able to block starlight to directly see exoplanets and planet-forming disks, complete a statistical census of planetary systems in our galaxy, and settle essential questions in the areas of dark energy, exoplanets, and infrared astrophysics.
Image credit: NASA/Jolearra Tshiteya
The space telescope will also carry a a commemorative plaque with a memory card containing 1 350 144 names.
The names were submitted by people globally, including astronauts from Artemis II and Artemis III.