Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope: Why it will change astronomy forever

This absolute monster of a telescope has been in the headlines of many news articles recently. Why? What makes this telescope so impressive and revolutionary? Well, although both the Roman and Hubble space telescopes will have similar resolutions, the Roman space telescope will have a field of view at least a hundred times larger than Hubble's. To us, this definitely sounds impressive, but not life-changing, so let me explain why it will truly change astronomy for us forever.

Dark matter and dark energy are both "dark" because we don't know anything about them: they don't interact with the electromagnetic spectrum. We only know that both dark matter and dark energy exist because we can see their effects on the matter we can see. By using the Roman Space Telescope, we will now see more matter than ever before, which will advance our studies in both dark matter and dark energy.

Photographer:NASA/Sydney Rohde (Rocz)

If that doesn't impress you, take a look at the NASA-released topics that the Roman Space Telescope will dive into:

• Exoplanets
• Dark energy
• Dark matter
• Near infrared
• Baryon Acoustic Oscillations

• Type Ia Supernovae
• Weak Lensing
• General Observer Program
• Observation Surveys

​This video gives us a trailer not only for what the Roman Space Telescope is, but also for what NASA plans to do with it.

Video credits: NASA / Photographer:Sophia Roberts

All in all, the Nancy Grace Telescope will be one of the biggest advancements in astronomy we've had in a long time. Not because it will answer one big question, but because it will give us a surplus of evidence that may answer hundreds of questions we've had for years.