NASA has launched Roman, the new telescope that will explore the universe like never before.

The U.S. space agency NASA successfully launched its new telescope, named after pioneering astronomer Nancy Grace Roman, into orbit on Friday at 07:26 local time (11:26 GMT) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The mission was carried out using a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, marking another milestone in humanity’s quest to understand the cosmos. The Roman telescope is designed to create a comprehensive “Atlas of the Universe,” offering unprecedented insights into some of the greatest mysteries of physics, including dark matter and dark energy. Developed over more than a decade at a cost exceeding $4 billion, the Roman telescope stands nearly 12 meters tall and will operate from a vantage point approximately 1.5 million kilometers away from Earth. It will take roughly 100 days to reach this distant location, where it will begin its observations. Its field of view is more than 100 times larger than that of the Hubble Space Telescope, allowing it to survey vast sections of the sky with remarkable efficiency. This capability makes it uniquely suited to studying distant celestial objects and mapping the structure of the universe. President Donald Trump announced the launch during a ceremony at NASA’s headquarters in Houston, Texas, emphasizing the telescope’s potential to uncover secrets hidden within the fabric of the cosmos. According to NASA administrator Jared Isaacman, the Roman telescope will provide a new atlas of the universe, offering scientists a detailed map of cosmic structures and phenomena. The telescope will work alongside other major observatories such as the James Webb Space Telescope, which offers greater resolution and precision, to form a powerful network of tools for astronomical research. One of the primary goals of the Roman telescope is to discover thousands of exoplanets and tens of thousands of supernovae. These findings could help scientists determine how common planetary systems like our own are throughout the galaxy. Technical lead Dave Content told AFP that the telescope will generate the largest catalog of astronomical objects ever created, significantly advancing our understanding of the universe’s composition and evolution. The Roman telescope is also expected to shed light on two of the most profound mysteries in cosmology: dark matter and dark energy. Together, these mysterious forces are believed to account for about 95 percent of the universe’s total mass-energy content. While dark matter acts as a gravitational glue holding galaxies together, dark energy is thought to drive the accelerated expansion of the universe. By observing infrared light emitted by celestial bodies billions of years ago, the Roman telescope will look back in time, providing scientists with a window into the early history of the cosmos. The data collected by the Roman telescope will complement efforts by other observatories, such as the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile and the Euclid satellite mission led by the European Space Agency (ESA). Julie McEnery, the project’s science principal investigator, noted that recent studies suggest existing models of the universe’s early expansion might be flawed. She explained that the Roman telescope will help clarify whether current theories hold true or require revision. “It will definitively say: ‘Yes, the model works, or it doesn’t,’ and if it doesn’t, it will give us the accuracy and quality of data needed to start solving the puzzle.”