Nasa’s new space telescope will tackle some of the universe’s biggest mysteries

NASA is preparing to launch the Nancy Grace Roman space telescope in late August—eight months ahead of schedule and under budget, a rarity for flagship missions. The observatory, named after NASA's first female chief of astronomy, will tackle some of astronomy's biggest questions: how the universe began, what it's made of, and how it's evolved over time. Unlike the James Webb telescope, which studies individual objects with extraordinary detail, Roman will survey vast areas of the sky simultaneously. The wide-field instrument surveys roughly a thousand times faster than Hubble—observations that would take Hubble centuries could be completed far more quickly. Per The Conversation (UK), the telescope will help astronomers test competing theories about dark matter and dark energy, the mysterious components that make up ninety-five percent of the universe, and conduct the largest survey yet of planets beyond our solar system.

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