NASA allows the public to 'adopt' pixels from the first images from the Nancy Grace Roman Telescope

NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is on its way to its final destination in space: a point of gravitational balance between Earth and the Sun, 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, known as Lagrange Point 2.

In this region, the gravitational force of the two stars is balanced in such a way that the spacecraft uses little fuel to stay in place — which is why it is used by other space observatories, such as the James Webb telescope, which occupies the same neighborhood.

But until Roman gets there, you can be part of the mission in another way: anyone can "adopt" a pixel from one of the telescope's first images.

In practice, anyone who participates in this initiative receives a certificate with their name and a number.

When the first images of Roman are released, NASA will reveal which pixel was linked to each participant's number — a symbolic way of having a small piece of these photos of the Universe associated with your name.

🌌 According to NASA, there are more than 1 million pixels available for action in each image of Roman. The first photos from the telescope should be released in the coming months.

Here's how to participate:

access the “Adopt a Pixel” page (in English), created by NASA for the action, by clicking here;

enter an email address — each email can only receive one pixel;

fill in the data to generate the certificate;

keep the number received, as it is what will later be associated with a pixel of one of Roman's first images;

When the images are released, it will then be possible to check which point was linked to the number.

Roman is considered by astronomers to be one of the most ambitious observatories ever built by NASA. The expectation around him is great.

The mission should help answer three of the biggest open puzzles in current astrophysics. The first is the nature of dark energy, a mysterious force that is said to be accelerating the expansion of the universe.

The second is the search for new exoplanets — planets that orbit other stars, outside the Solar System.

The third is the study of phenomena that can only be observed in infrared light, invisible to the human eye.

From a technical point of view, the telescope has a main mirror measuring 2.4 meters in diameter. It is exactly the same size as the Hubble mirror, one of the most iconic observatories in the history of astronomy.

The difference lies in Roman's wide-field instrument, capable of capturing an area of ​​the sky up to 100 times larger than Hubble's infrared instrument.

In practice, this means that the new telescope should be able to map much larger regions of space — and in much less observation time — than any of the agency's previous equipment.