NASA launches the Roman space telescope to map the Universe

It must offer the Earth “a new Atlas of the Universe”. NASA launched the Roman space telescope this Sunday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, in the southeast of the United States. This latest generation telescope “will allow us to unlock the secrets of the universe”, assured American President Donald Trump on Friday during a ceremony at NASA premises. It is intended to accomplish unprecedented mapping of the cosmos.

Developed for more than a decade at a cost exceeding $4 billion, the device is named in honor of one of the greatest American astronomers, Nancy Grace Roman, nicknamed the “mother of Hubble”, after the name of another flagship NASA telescope.

Hubble notably taught us that our universe is expanding faster than we thought. The “Roman Space Telescope” will be responsible for answering unanswered questions. Thanks to its wide field of view, more than 100 times greater than that of Hubble, it will scan large areas of the sky from a privileged vantage point, 1.5 million kilometers from Earth.

“This will be the largest catalog of astronomical objects ever produced”

With this new telescope, NASA wants to tackle one of the greatest mysteries of the cosmos: dark matter and dark energy, which together constitute around 95% of the Universe. “Roman” should also make it possible to discover thousands of exoplanets and tens of thousands of supernovae, that is to say massive stars at the end of their life.

Thanks to its infrared vision, the telescope will be able to observe the light emitted by celestial objects billions of years ago and thus go back in time to better understand them. “This will be the largest catalog of astronomical objects ever made, and it will help us understand how common solar systems like ours are,” insisted Dave Content, technical manager of the telescope.

These observations could revolutionize our understanding of the structure of the Universe. Scientists recently realized that the “standard model,” which describes how it works, might be incomplete, says Julie McEnery, the astrophysicist in charge of the telescope. “Roman will be able to confirm this and put us on the path to understanding what is right,” she concludes.