NASA plans to soon launch a new space telescope that will survey a billion galaxies to trace how the universe evolved over time, all courtesy of America’s spy program and decades of research into detector technology.

The telescope, known as the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, was first developed by the National Reconnaissance Office, before being transferred to NASA in 2012. The intelligence agency no longer needed the hardware for its future missions, so it sent the unused telescope to NASA. The space agency spent over a decade making modifications and aims to launch the telescope into space as early as Aug. 30, 2026.

Once in position, the telescope will take data that astronomers like me hope will help answer some of the field’s most puzzling questions.

Roman’s scientific goals

You can expect a slew of exciting discoveries from the new telescope because it was built to look across the universe and study the three-dimensional distribution of dark matter. While scientists haven’t directly observed it before, dark matter produces unseen effects on objects in the universe, similar to those produced by visible matter.

Likewise, Roman will see exploding stars called supernovas that allow astronomers to measure how fast the universe has been expanding. Those measurements will help astronomers measure the varying expansion rate of the universe. Dark matter and dark energy, also not yet directly observed, together are the source of the vast majority of energy in the universe, but their physical natures are unknown.

Closer to home, Roman will monitor small variations in light from stars near the center of the Milky Way galaxy in order to infer the presence of rogue planets drifting between the stars. As a planet passes in front of a star, it briefly perturbs and magnifies the light from the star behind it, confirming its presence.

Finally,........

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