'A giant leap forward': Nasa launches powerful new space telescope

Nasa's powerful next-generation telescope has blasted off into space from its launchpad in Florida, with a mission to explore dark energy, black holes and other mysteries of the Universe.

Key points

• Nasa's James Webb Space Telescope, introduced in 2021, additionally orbits the Sun around one million miles from Earth, but its field of vision is not as expansive.
• Fox remarked Roman "is going to discover tens of thousands, maybe even 100, 000 new exoplanets" – referring to planets located outside of our solar system.
• The successful launch of the telescope took place on Sunday morning local time from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
• "Roman is going to change the way we look at the Universe, " remarked Nicky Fox, a Nasa administrator.
• Regarding 30 minutes after launch, Roman separated from its SpaceX rocket and is now heading towards its orbiting point around a million miles away.

In practice, the Nancy Grace Roman telescope will capture vast panoramic views of space, with a field of vision 100 times larger than both the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes, Nasa notes.

For context, the mission begins with a 100-day journey to a vantage point roughly one million miles from Earth, where the telescope will then start charting planets outside our solar system, known as exoplanets.

Notably, the successful launch of the telescope took place on Sunday morning local time from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Jackie Townsend, a project manager on Nasa's Roman telescope, described it as "glorious" at a news conference afterwards. "The ride was magnificent. It put us right where we wanted to be."

"Why do we care so much regarding exoplanets? Since one of our main goals at Nasa is answering the question, 'Are we alone in the universe'?" she went on.

US President Donald Trump dialled in to the space agency's news conference to congratulate the scientists working on the project.

"You're the hottest in space, and we have the hottest country anywhere in the world. So, let's keep it all going. You're a major part of it, " Trump stated.

Astronomer Jenifer Millard remarked the telescope will be four times further from Earth than the Moon is, where a lot of infrared space cameras – produced to pick up what she describes as "heat light"- operate.

She informed the BBC this is to produce sure infrared light from the Moon and Earth don't interfere with the cameras.

Nasa's James Webb Space Telescope, introduced in 2021, additionally orbits the Sun around one million miles from Earth, but its field of vision is not as expansive. Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope, introduced in 1990, orbits at concerning 300 miles above Earth's surface.

While Roman will look outward into the Universe, Millard remarked scientists are additionally anticipating it will find thousands of new worlds in our own galaxy.

Notably, the telescope is named after physicist Nancy Grace Roman. This person was Nasa's first chief astronomer in the 1960s and its first female executive.

During her career, she was instrumental in getting the Hubble Space Telescope approved by US Congress and afterwards stated its most interesting discovery was dark energy.

In practice, the new telescope is similarly projected to revolutionise our understanding of the Universe, including through investigating dark energy. It has a five-year primary lifespan with a goal to operate for 10 years.

Nasa notes its "crisp, sweeping surveys will help scientists investigate dark energy and dark matter, discover and characterise exoplanets, map billions of galaxies, study black holes, and explore objects from our own solar system to the edge of the observable Universe."

While dark energy is believed to be a repulsive force driving the Universe's expansion, dark matter, which is invisible, acts as a kind of gravitational glue. Together, they are thought to create up concerning 95% of the Universe.

"One of our main goals at Nasa is answering the question: are we alone in the Universe?" Fox remarked at a Sunday morning news conference.

"With Roman, we are going to make this giant leap forward. That is going to allow us to look at these distant, distant worlds and start to really resolve the atmosphere around them to let us know: could they be habitable?"

Millard remarked, through the work of telescopes like Roman, scientists are hoping to create "enormous cosmic maps" of the Universe at various stages.

"They'll be almost like an onion, so you can peel back layer upon layer. And see how the distribution of galaxies changes through cosmic time, " she remarked.

"What we want to do is use this distribution to try and figure out dark matter and dark energy because we know they exist, we see their effects, but what they are is a real mystery."

Taken together, the developments around ' A giant leap forward' : Nasa launches powerful new space telescope point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.