There’s A New Space Telescope On Its Way To Help Answer The Biggest Question In The Universe

On August 30, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope successfully launched from Florida and will spend the next three months heading to its new home: a Sun-Earth Lagrange point, a million miles from Earth, where the gravity of the two larger bodies are in equilibrium. It’s a comfy place to be for a space telescope; Roman can say hi to her old classmate Webb, who got there four years ago and has been sending back brilliant images and doing good science.

Roman’s a strange bird by NASA standards. It came in under budget and ahead of schedule. Its primary mirror, donated from the National Reconnaissance Office, is from a canceled spy program. There’ll be a shakedown period to make sure everything’s working OK, so Roman won’t officially enter service until some time next year. I’m sure I’ll fawn over its debut images—half of Roman’s job description is to look for new planets—but the other half is pretty valuable too. Without any hyperbole: What Roman sees could help us figure out what the universe is made of, and its ultimate fate. Big questions! Hope the plucky telescope is up to the job.