Thursday, March 28

Roman: the telescope thousand times faster than Hubble | Digital Trends Spanish


NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope: Broadening Our Cosmic Horizons

Since its launch in 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope has delighted space fans with its stunning views of space objects near and far. But NASA has another space telescope in the works that could help answer even more of the big questions in astronomy. He Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescopewhich will launch in 2027 and is colloquially known as Roman, will survey vast areas of space to help cosmologists understand the universe on a large scale.

In astronomical research, it is important to be able to look both in great detail and on a large scale. Telescopes like Hubble and James Webb have exceptional sensitivity, so they can look at extremely distant objects. Roman will be different, aiming to get a wide view of the sky. The image below illustrates the differences between the telescopes, showing what Roman and Hubble can capture in one shot and comparing Hubble’s detailed but narrow view with Roman’s much broader view.

This image, containing millions of simulated galaxies scattered across space and time, shows the areas that Hubble (white) and Roman (yellow) can capture in a single snapshot. It would take Hubble about 85 years to map the entire region shown in the image at the same depth, but Roman could do it in just 63 days. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and A. Yung

“The Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes are optimized for studying astronomical objects in depth and up close, so they’re like looking at the universe through pinholes,” said Aaron Yung of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, who recently led a study which predicts Roman’s abilities, in a release. “To solve cosmic mysteries on the largest scales, we need a space telescope that can provide a much larger view. That’s exactly what Roman is designed to do.”

Roman will be used for tasks like do a study to estimate how many exoplanets exist throughout the galaxy and look at the distribution of galaxies to help understand dark matter. A big advantage that Roman has for this type of work, along with his wide eyesight, is that he will take pictures very quickly. According to NASA, Roman will be able to map the universe up to 1,000 times faster than Hubble.

“Roman will take about 100,000 pictures each year,” said Jeffrey Kruk, a research astrophysicist at Goddard. “Given Roman’s larger field of view, it would take more than our lives, even for powerful telescopes like Hubble or Webb, to cover that much sky.”

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