NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launches to study universe’s biggest mysteries

FLORIDA, USA (WWAY) — NASA’s newest space telescope launched Sunday from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, beginning a mission to study some of the universe’s biggest mysteries.

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will travel to a point beyond the moon, where scientists will use its observations to better understand how the universe has evolved.

Dr. Matthew Bolcar, the telescope’s optical systems lead, said Roman will map the structure of the universe by examining how stars, galaxies and matter are distributed across space.

“We are looking for mapping out the structure of the universe,” Bolcar said. “We’re looking for how stars are distributed, how galaxies are shaped, how all this matter is distributed across the universe.”

Scientists will use that information to study the effects of dark matter and dark energy, two of the biggest unanswered questions in modern astronomy.

Bolcar said the telescope is expected to transmit about 1.4 terabytes of data each day. He said the resolution and scale of the images produced by Roman will give scientists an unprecedented view of the cosmos.