What Can the Roman Telescope Teach Us About the Universe?
NASA's new telescope can capture images 100 times larger than Hubble.
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News •
NASA’s Roman Space Telescope Enters Final Commissioning Phase
• Oct. 22, 2026, 3:43 PM ET (NASA Science (.gov))
NASA’s Roman Space Telescope Is Sharper Than Anyone Expected
• Oct. 20, 2026, 7:25 PM ET (SciTechDaily)
NASA’s Roman Space Telescope exceeds expectations by nearly 30%
• Oct. 17, 2026, 3:00 AM ET (Science Daily)
Transcript
NASA has a new space telescope, and it’s really, really cool.
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launched on August 30th, 2026, and its field of view is a hundred times larger than NASA’s two telescopes currently in use.
In fact, the Roman telescope will be able to capture millions of galaxies in a single image.
The Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope have been amazing at telling us how individual stars and galaxies have evolved.
Roman’s job is to tell us how the universe has evolved.
Take a look at this.
In 2004 we got this image from the Hubble Space Telescope, capturing nearly ten thousand galaxies.
This is what we can expect from a single image from the Roman Space Telescope.
Why is this important?
Some cosmic forces are so large that you can’t grasp their impact by looking at a single star or galaxy.
Doing so would be like studying an earthquake one microbe at a time.
For example, dark energy is a mysterious force that’s causing our universe to expand faster and faster by pushing countless galaxies apart.
To learn more about it, we need to know how millions of galaxies have moved and grown over time.
So NASA built a telescope that can capture millions of galaxies.
This wide field of view is also perfect for finding new Earth-like planets outside of our solar system.
NASA will point it toward hundreds of millions of stars at the center of our galaxy.
And wait.
[crickets sound effect.]
Roman will catch microlensing events, which occur when a massive object like a planet comes into a chance alignment with a star far away.
The object’s gravity interferes with the light coming from the star, causing it to brighten temporarily.
By tracking that changing brightness, we can learn things about the planet, like its mass and the length of its year.
We have no way of predicting these microlensing events, so instead of setting our sights on a single star and waiting for a flicker, Roman will watch hundreds of millions of stars at once.
And when it finds something interesting, scientists can direct Hubble and Webb to follow up with their own specialized instruments.
The Roman Space Telescope is named for NASA’s first chief of astronomy, Nancy Grace Roman, who came to be known as the “Mother of Hubble” for her role in making the Hubble telescope a reality.
This means that the “Mother of Hubble” has joined the Hubble telescope in space for some very impressive family teamwork.
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launched on August 30th, 2026, and its field of view is a hundred times larger than NASA’s two telescopes currently in use.
In fact, the Roman telescope will be able to capture millions of galaxies in a single image.
The Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope have been amazing at telling us how individual stars and galaxies have evolved.
Roman’s job is to tell us how the universe has evolved.
Take a look at this.
In 2004 we got this image from the Hubble Space Telescope, capturing nearly ten thousand galaxies.
This is what we can expect from a single image from the Roman Space Telescope.
Why is this important?
Some cosmic forces are so large that you can’t grasp their impact by looking at a single star or galaxy.
Doing so would be like studying an earthquake one microbe at a time.
For example, dark energy is a mysterious force that’s causing our universe to expand faster and faster by pushing countless galaxies apart.
To learn more about it, we need to know how millions of galaxies have moved and grown over time.
So NASA built a telescope that can capture millions of galaxies.
This wide field of view is also perfect for finding new Earth-like planets outside of our solar system.
NASA will point it toward hundreds of millions of stars at the center of our galaxy.
And wait.
[crickets sound effect.]
Roman will catch microlensing events, which occur when a massive object like a planet comes into a chance alignment with a star far away.
The object’s gravity interferes with the light coming from the star, causing it to brighten temporarily.
By tracking that changing brightness, we can learn things about the planet, like its mass and the length of its year.
We have no way of predicting these microlensing events, so instead of setting our sights on a single star and waiting for a flicker, Roman will watch hundreds of millions of stars at once.
And when it finds something interesting, scientists can direct Hubble and Webb to follow up with their own specialized instruments.
The Roman Space Telescope is named for NASA’s first chief of astronomy, Nancy Grace Roman, who came to be known as the “Mother of Hubble” for her role in making the Hubble telescope a reality.
This means that the “Mother of Hubble” has joined the Hubble telescope in space for some very impressive family teamwork.
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