The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope sets off on a mission to explore the secrets of the universe

A new space telescope is preparing to launch on a mission aimed at uncovering some of the universe's greatest secrets.

NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is scheduled to launch from Florida, USA, on Sunday, August 30, at noon GMT.

The telescope will be launched aboard SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket. Its primary mission is scheduled to last five years, while the cost of the project is about 4.3 billion dollars, but it is possible that the telescope will continue its work for a longer period.

NASA says the telescope has a “wide, powerful field of view.”

The Roman telescope includes a mirror that is 2.4 meters wide, which is the same size as the main mirror in the famous Hubble Space Telescope.

But the Roman telescope can, in one shot, photograph an area of ​​the sky more than 200 times larger than the area photographed by Hubble, which means that it will be able to monitor vast areas of space at a much greater speed.

The telescope will monitor infrared light, which the human eye cannot see, but which allows the discovery of celestial bodies obscured by cosmic dust clouds.

Scientists expect that the Roman telescope will discover more than 100,000 exoplanets, which is the name given to planets orbiting stars located outside our solar system.

The telescope will search for these planets in two main ways. The first relies on observing the slight decrease in the brightness of a star when a planet passes in front of it.

The second method, known as “gravitational microlensing,” relies on observing what happens when a star passes in front of another, more distant star.

The gravity of the nearest star bends the light from the distant star, making it appear brighter for a short period.

If there is a planet orbiting the nearest star, its gravity may cause an additional change in this brightness, which helps scientists know whether the planet exists or not.

Dr. Eamonn Kerins, from the Jodrell Bank Center for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester, leads a team studying the planets discovered by the first method, and is also participating in a team that uses the second method.

"The scientific discoveries we expect the Roman mission to make will be simply amazing, and will change our understanding of planets orbiting other stars," he said.

The Roman telescope will also investigate two of the biggest mysteries of the universe: dark matter and dark energy.

Scientists cannot see dark matter directly, because it does not emit or reflect light. But they infer its existence from the effect of its gravity on the movement of stars and galaxies, and on the path of light as it travels through space.

The Roman Telescope will study millions of galaxies to map the areas where this hidden matter may exist.

Scientists also discovered that the universe is expanding, meaning that the distances between distant galaxies are expanding, and this expansion appears to be accelerating.