NASA Announces Space Telescope That Could Answer the Universe's Biggest Mysteries

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NASA Announces Space Telescope That Could Answer the Universe's Biggest Mysteries

The US space agency NASA has unveiled its new space telescope, ROMAN, capable of scanning vast areas of the universe in search of exoplanets, as well as providing answers to the biggest physics mysteries: dark matter and dark energy.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, speaking from the agency's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, said that this next-generation telescope "will provide Earth with a new atlas of the universe." The telescope, which is over 12 meters long and equipped with massive solar panels, will be transported to Florida in preparation for its launch into space as early as September aboard a SpaceX rocket.

 (NASA unveils its new space telescope - April 21, 2026)

The telescope, which cost over four billion dollars, was named "Roman" after Nancy Grace Roman, one of the most prominent American astronomers, nicknamed "Mother of Hubble" after NASA's famous Hubble Space Telescope. 

From an observation point 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, Roman will survey vast areas of the sky thanks to its wide field of view, which is more than 100 times greater than Hubble's.

Mark Milton, systems engineer for the Roman mission, told AFP that the new telescope will transmit "11 terabytes of data to Earth every day, meaning that the amount of data it will provide in its first year alone exceeds what the Hubble Space Telescope has collected throughout its entire 35-year operational life."

NASA's associate administrator for science, Nikki Fox, predicted that Roman, thanks to its wide-angle lens, would allow for the discovery of tens of thousands of new planets, as well as thousands of supernovae—massive stars nearing the end of their life cycle.

But Roman also aims to study the unseen: dark matter and dark energy, believed to make up 95% of the universe. Using infrared light, Roman will be able to detect light emitted by celestial objects billions of years ago, thus traveling back in time to better understand these two mysterious phenomena.