RESOLVING THE LEDGER
This is one outlet's own report from Space.com — the article as it was filed. Other outlets are covering the same event; open the full story to compare every source side by side.
See the full story · 9 sources
Even if you aren't the kind of person who often looks up the latest space images, it's hard to navigate life (especially on the internet) without running into a few. Try choosing a new iPhone background and you'll have your pick of sharp, gray moon portraits. Watch an old "Star Trek" episode and you may not realize how many of those translucent nebulas outside the spaceship's windows were based on real, hard data.
When it comes to space, we're spoiled. Mind-bending objects light-years away from us have managed to become integrated into our everyday lives — and though we're still a ways away from understanding the true nature of the universe, we're also the closest we've ever been. It's in large part thanks to how impeccable our fleet of space telescopes is. In seconds, you can find a Hubble Space Telescope Deep Field with luminescent galaxies warped along the curvature of spacetime and James Webb Space Telescope images of strange hazy red objects from just after the dawn of time.
Moreover, what's tremendously exciting is this fleet is constantly growing. Indeed, very soon, a new space telescope will launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It's called the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope , and it should be able to unlock a new level in the astronomy layer of our lives. It will show us new types of images, reveal new types of data and lead us in directions we may not yet know are possible.
What is Roman?
To put it succinctly, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is an approximately 42-foot-long (12.7-meter-long), cylindrical metal observatory scheduled to lift off from our planet on Aug. 30 aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.
Across a five-year-long mission (a 10-year-long one if everything goes well), Roman is meant to use two powerful instruments — the Wide-Field Instrument (WFI) and Coronagraph Instrument — to image huge swaths of the cosmos and tackle some crucial questions. It will help scientists probe the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy , directly image exoplanets near and far, witness an extensive amount of stars exploding in colossal supernovas and more.
But whether or not it's a fair thought, it's hard not to want to compare the specifications of this space telescope to some of the others that have brought the cosmos down into our daily lives. This is particularly true for two of the major players right now: the James Webb Space Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope.
What can Roman do that these two cannot?
The multiple-image effect seen in this Hubble picture is produced by a process called gravitational lensing, a quirk of warped spacetime in which the gravitational field of a massive object bends and amplifies light from a background object. (Image credit: ESA, NASA, K. Sharon (Tel Aviv University) and E. Ofek (Caltech))
Roman vs. Hubble
To start, one of the biggest benefits of Roman over Hubble is its processing power.
By numbers, that means Hubble has managed to gather about 400 terabytes of data over its approximately 35 years of service so far. Roman is expected to be able to create 500 terabytes of data every single year.
"Its surveying capabilities are over 1,000 times faster than Hubble, and can chart 200 times more sky in a single image," NASA administrator Jared Isaacman said during a press conference about Roman in April . "What would take Hubble 2,000 years to process, Roman can do in a year — the images it captures will be so large there is not a screen in existence large enough to show them."
Roman's primary mirror is about 7.9 feet (2.4 meters) wide, which is actually the same as Hubble's. Primary mirrors are arguably the most important aspect of a space telescope, because it's how an observatory manages to gather light coming from the universe. Bigger mirrors can collect more light, which allows them to see dimmer or more distant objects. Interestingly, Roman's primary mirror is also about 80% lighter than Hubble's. Roman has a secondary mirror as well; it's just under 2 feet (0.5 meters) wide. Hubble's secondary mirror is very similar at exactly 12.2 inches (0.3 m) in width.
On the left, the Roman Space Telescope. On the right, Hubble. (Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center)
Yet even though Roman's mirrors are so comparable to Hubble's, because of Roman's processing power as well as the capabilities of its WFI, it will be able to image a far wider stretch of sky than Hubble can.
Though Roman does have some visible light capabilities like Hubble, WFI specializes in infrared light — actually the kind of light the JWST works with, but we'll get to that telescope comparison shortly — so we should compare it to Hubble's infrared instrument. The WFI's field of view is about 100 times greater than the Hubble infrared instrument's field of view.
According to NASA, this view will allow Roman to measure light emanating from a billion galaxies and billions more cosmic phenomena over its years of service.
"Both observatories will perform spectroscopy," NASA explains, "which involves splitting light into individual colors to study patterns that reveal detailed information. But Roman's spectral studies will have lower resolution over a large area, while Hubble's has higher resolution over a small area."
This concept really sums up the difference between the two telescopes, and in fact foreshadows what we'll soon discuss about the JWST.
NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is encapsulated in the payload fairing of its SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. (Image credit: SpaceX)
Roman vs. the JWST
The main similarity between the Roman Space Telescope and the JWST is those infrared light goggles.
Infrared light, unlike visible light, is invisible to human eyes. You can think of it more like a heat signature. Firefighters, for instance, use infrared trackers on burning buildings from the outside to see where the source of the fire might lie within. And when it comes to astronomy, infrared light is priceless — that's why t...
AIPROPX is an independent multi-source news index — we track, compare, and connect coverage from across the web into one place you won't find anywhere else.