NASA launches telescope to create new atlas of the universe

Published at: 30/08/2026 03:13 PM

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched this Sunday the Nancy Grace Roman space telescope from the Kennedy Space Center, in Florida, with the purpose of developing a new atlas of the universe and deepening the study of dark energy, dark matter and exoplanets.

The mission took off at 7:26 in the morning (local time) aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, and the observatory is expected to reach the Lagrange L2 point, about 1.6 million kilometers from Earth, in a trip of approximately three months, international media reported.

The telescope has a field of view 100 times larger than that of the historic Hubble and will allow us to search the Milky Way in a single month, a job that would take its predecessor a century, according to the space agency.

Roman has been described by NASA as a “discovery machine” that could change current models of physics; its main mission, which will last more than a year, will cover more than 2 billion galaxies and is estimated to allow the detection of thousands of new exoplanets using a coronagraph that cancels the brightness of the stars.

The cost of the project amounts to 4.3 billion dollars and its first high-resolution image is expected before the festivities of December 2026.

Mazo News Team