NASA launched its new flagship space telescope on Sunday, embarking on a multi-year mission to create an unprecedented map of the cosmos and shed light on some of the greatest mysteries in physics.
The Roman Space Telescope, designed to provide a panoramic view of the vast expanses of space, will “help unlock the secrets of the universe,” the US president said. Donald Trump said Friday during a ceremony at NASA Headquarters in Houston: Texas.
The 40-foot-tall state-of-the-art observatory was launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 7:26 a.m. on board a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.
The telescope was developed over more than a decade at a cost of more than $4 billion. It is named after pioneering American astronomer Nancy Grace Roman, who became known as the ‘Mother of Hubble’, one of NASA’s flagship telescopes.
While Hubble revealed that the universe is expanding faster than previously thought, Roman will attempt to answer some of the other unsolved mysteries, including those of dark matter and dark energy.
The state-of-the-art observatory stands over 40 feet tall and was launched at 7:26 a.m. from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket
The telescope was developed over more than ten years at a cost of more than 4 billion dollars and is named after the pioneering American astronomer Nancy Grace Roman.
This image from NASA shows a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket launching from the Roman Telescope space observatory at Kennedy Space Center
“Roman will give Earth a new atlas of the universe,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said in April when he unveiled the project to the press.
With a field of view more than 100 times wider than Hubble’s – and considerably wider than James Webb’s – Roman will map vast swathes of the sky from a vantage point 950,000 miles from Earth, which will take about 100 days to achieve.
Designed to work with other observatories like Webb, which offers greater power and precision, Roman aims to discover thousands of exoplanets, as well as tens of thousands of supernovae, the explosive death of massive stars.
“It will be the largest catalog of astronomical objects anyone has ever produced, and it will help us understand how common solar systems like ours are,” Dave Content, Roman’s technical manager, told AFP.
The new telescope will also shed light on two of the greatest mysteries in physics: dark matter and dark energy.
Their origin remains unknown, but it is believed that together they make up about 95 percent of the universe.
Roman wants to discover thousands of exoplanets, as well as tens of thousands of supernovae, the explosive death of massive stars
The new telescope will also shed light on two of the greatest mysteries in physics: dark matter and dark energy
SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket launches with NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope aboard Launch Complex 39A
A SpaceX Falcon Heavy side booster is seen approaching LZ-40 after the launch of NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope
Dark matter is thought to act as a kind of gravitational glue, while dark energy is believed to be a repulsive force driving the expansion of the universe.
With his infrared vision, Roman will be able to detect light emitted from celestial bodies billions of years ago, effectively allowing him to look back in time, offering scientists a glimpse into the universe’s distant past and helping them better understand these two mysterious phenomena.
Roman’s observations will complement work by the Rubin Observatory in Chile and the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Euclid probe, and are highly anticipated as they could challenge scientists’ understanding of the structure of the universe.
Julie McEnery, Roman’s senior project scientist, said recent research suggests that the way scientists have been thinking about the early expansion of the universe, based on the predictions of existing models, may be wrong.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, left, shakes hands with President Donald Trump before participating in a Congressional Space Medal of Honor ceremony at NASA’s Johnson Space Center on August 28, 2026
A journalist photographing the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope at NASA’s Goddard Space Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, in April 2026
“Recent observations indicate that our standard model of the universe is incorrect,” she told a news conference on Saturday, adding that Roman will help clarify this.
“It will definitively say, ‘Yes, the model works, or it doesn’t work.’ And if it doesn’t, it will give us the precision and quality of data to help us differentiate between those options.”
Scientists and the general public will have access to all of Roman’s data. But the sheer volume will be daunting, Content warned.
The telescope will generate about 1.3 terabytes of data per day, “which means you basically can’t download the data to someone’s laptop,” he said.
For McEnery, the more data, the better.
“I very much hope, and even expect, that Roman’s most exciting science will be a surprise, something we couldn’t predict, and that it will set the stage for the next deeper set of questions that future missions will have to answer.”
