NASA’s new flagship astronomical observatory was launched into space from Florida on Sunday on a mission to probe some of the biggest mysteries in astrophysics and cosmology.
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, a roughly $4 billion project, was carried aloft from NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.
The telescope is designed to investigate cosmic enigmas such as dark energy and dark matter, while also testing gravity at vast scales and searching for exoplanets, as planets beyond our solar system are called.
There were some weather concerns ahead of the launch but the rocket carried the telescope into space through blue skies and some scattered clouds.
Roman will travel through space toward an orbital location called Lagrange Point 2, situated about a million miles (1.6 million km) from Earth. Its mission is planned for five years, though the US space agency said the telescope may have enough fuel for five additional years.
Roman will build on the capabilities of other orbiting observatories such as the James Webb Space Telescope, launched in 2021, and the Hubble Space Telescope, launched in 1990.
