Roman Telescope to reveal hidden universe

NASA’s cutting-edge Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, a $4 billion observatory, is set to unravel some of the universe's biggest mysteries including dark energy, dark matter and distant worlds

Primary mirror

James Webb
6.5m
Hubble
2.4m
Roman
2.4m

Roman’s mirror is 2.4 metres in diameter – same as Hubble Space Telescope’s primary mirror, but only one-fourth the weight

James Webb Space Telescope captures detailed views of space, while Roman surveys much wider areas, helping identify targets for Webb to study in greater detail

Lagrange Point 2
Roman will orbit spot around 1.5 million km from Earth, where Sun’s and Earth’s gravity help keep telescope in stable position. Webb also orbits here

L2
Moon orbit
Earth orbit
SUN
Hubble orbit
570km
Not to scale

Coronagraph Instrument technology demonstration
(Opposite side of telescope): Performs high contrast imaging and spectroscopy of individual nearby exoplanets

Observatory support systems
Deployable aperture cover
Solar array / sunshield
Antenna

Light enters telescope
Primary mirror
Secondary mirror
Filter
Flat mirrors

Wide Field Instrument (WFI)

Holds 300-megapixel near-infrared camera with 18 detectors designed to survey vast chunks of sky

Roman Field of view

Roman can observe 100 times more sky in one image than one standard image from Hubble, capturing thousands of galaxies and tens of millions of stars at once

Hubble

Telescope named after Dr Nancy Grace Roman (above) – NASA’s first chief astronomer, nicknamed “Mother of Hubble” as she was key to making telescope a reality

Source: NASA
Picture: NASA/GSFC/SVS, NASA/ESA
© GRAPHIC NEWS