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- Reason077Roman is scheduled to launch tomorrow (Aug 30) on a Falcon Heavy rocket:https://www.space.com/news/live/nancy-grace-roman-telescope-...
- marzeFor some tasks, surveys in particular, field of view is critical. You would need many Hubble telescopes to do what Roman can do mapping everything out there."What really makes Roman stand out is that it is designed for wide-field imaging. The cameras on telescopes can often only detect objects in a very small patch of sky. If we use the size that the full moon appears in the sky as our guide, Hubble’s field of view is often smaller than that —meaning each picture it takes is of a patch of sky smaller than the full moon. Webb’s instruments often are even smaller than Hubble’s. Each picture taken by Roman, however, will be larger than the full moon, allowing it to survey more of the sky much faster than Hubble or Webb."https://science.psu.edu/news/ask-expert-will-roman-help-reve...
- willis936Part of the story is everyone being shocked at being under budget and ahead of schedule. I don't know everything, but I think this is reasonably attributable to the fact that this is a retrofit of an obsolete spy satellite. The leftovers of the security sector will be the most advanced scientific space surveyor. I have to wonder what things would look like with different priorities.
- dylan604I'm really excited about observations we're about to see over the next decade. Bringing NGR online and combining with Rubin, Hubble, and JWST will give us imagery and hopefully new discoveries and understanding.I had the fortune of letting some of my neighbors through a telescope for the first time for the partial lunar eclipse. I say fortune, because it is amazing to be a part of someone having that experience that never disappoints. Even if they've seen images from NASA/ESA, putting your eyeball directly to the 'scope is much more meaningful.
- stuart78This video linked from the site is quite good at adding a sense of scale to the undertaking. I also love that Roman will be supported by Hubble and Webb.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDwemQH2zDU
- anonundefined
- danilorI'm wondering what are the considerations for having multiple detectors instead of a single large one! Does anybody have an idea? is it just because it's easier?
- BoredomIsFunThankfully, it is not Nancy Ann Grace.
- MistletoeI was scared for a second that the current clown administration had named a space telescope after Nancy Grace the tv personality.
- ck2I'm still holding my breath on this one, will be most amazing telescope in my lifetimeparked in L2 a million miles away with 500mbps data transfer rate (1.5TB per DAY)we've made it past DOGE destroying itwe've made it past him renaming it after himself and putting his mugshot on itbut Musk still needs to send it out of orbit without explosions, so here's hoping(Falcon Heavy, don't tell me the odds)* https://nextspaceflight.com/launches/details/6983/* JWST vs Roman comparison https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14942/* https://www.wired.com/story/nasas-nancy-grace-roman-space-te...* https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nasas-roman-space...* https://www.npr.org/2026/08/28/nx-s1-5905370/nasa-nancy-grac...did not know and it's horrific Roman started as a billion dollar spy satellite sitting in a warehouse unused, but okay we got the crumbs from $20 Trillion in military spending I guessoh and while the smallest planet Roman can image will be Jupiter-sized, Roman's successor would be able to image earth-like planetsexcept The Habitale Worlds Observatory Space Telescope HWO was scheduled for 2040 and now will not happen in my lifetime because DOGE got that one, Congress awarded it $150 Million and DOGE changed it to $5 Million* https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/programs/habitable-wor...* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitable_Worlds_Observatory