NASA’s Roman space telescope gets ready to stare at distant suns to find alien planets
NASA Space Technology The Roman Coronagraph is integrated with the Instrument Carrier for NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope in a clean room at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., in October 2024.(Image credit: NASA/Sydney Rohde)In a clean room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, scientists have successfully integrated a crucial component onto the Roman Space Telescope. This device, known as the Roman Coronagraph Instrument, is designed to block starlight, enabling scientists to detect the faint light from planets beyond our solar system.This achievement marks a significant milestone for NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, a next-generation space observatory that will launch around May 2027. With a field of view at least 100 times larger than that of the Hubble Space Telescope, Roman will be used to investigate scientific mysteries related...