Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.
UPSC Relevance: Science & Technology
Why in News?
NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope was launched on 30 August 2026 and entered its commissioning phase.
Named After
Nancy Grace Roman, often called the "Mother of Hubble" because of her major role in NASA's space astronomy programme.
Mission Objectives
Roman will investigate:
Dark energy
Dark matter
Exoplanets
Galaxy evolution
Large-scale structure of the Universe
Important Features
Roman has a wide field of view, allowing it to survey huge areas of the sky.
It includes a:
Coronagraph Instrument
which helps block the light from stars to study nearby exoplanets.
Orbit
It is headed toward the:
Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point
approximately 1.5 million km from Earth.
Comparison
| Telescope | Key Strength |
|---|---|
| Hubble | High-resolution optical/UV observations |
| James Webb | Infrared astronomy |
| Roman | Wide-field infrared surveys |
UPSC Key Pointer
Roman is especially important for studying dark energy and dark matter and conducting large-scale astronomical surveys. (NASA Science)
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