CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.—NASA dispatched its latest addition to its fleet of space telescopes on Aug. 30, beginning a multi-year mission of cosmic discovery that is promising to dwarf that of its predecessors.
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, called Roman for short, will tackle several objectives. It promises to expand human understanding of dark matter and dark energy, and thereby shed more light on how the universe is expanding.
It will conduct an unprecedented cosmic survey of more than two billion galaxies, as well as the largest survey of planets across our galaxy outside the solar system. It will witness cosmic events undetectable by older telescopes and give new insights into the center of our own galaxy….