NASA's Roman Space Telescope: Widening Our Gaze

Released Tuesday, December 23, 2025

ID: 14937

The NASA Astrophysics fleet of spacecraft has an impressive range of capabilities. What is the next step in exploring the cosmos? The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, NASA’s upcoming flagship mission, will take Hubble’s resolution and widen its infrared view to more than 100 times the coverage in every single image. Roman is a survey telescope that can peer through the Milky Way’s obscuring dust, and see faint, distant galaxies. Roman’s rigid design allows it to scan large regions of sky very quickly. Hubble would take 1,000 years to observe what Roman can see in one. Roman’s 18 4k x 4k detectors create 300-megapixel images covering an area of sky slightly larger than the full Moon. Roman will also look at the same regions of space repeatedly over time, allowing astronomers to see changes and observe temporary events like supernovae. Roman’s surveys of deep space and the center of our Milky Way galaxy will find thousands of new exoplanets, survey millions of galaxies, help us understand dark matter and dark energy, and learn more about the evolution of the universe.

NASA’s freshly assembled Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will revolutionize our understanding of the universe with its deep, crisp, sweeping infrared views of space. The mission will transform virtually every branch of astronomy and bring us closer to understanding the mysteries of dark energy, dark matter, and how common planets like Earth are throughout our galaxy. Roman is on track for launch by May 2027, with teams working toward a launch as early as fall 2026. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Music: “Forever Clouds,” Cyrus Reynolds [BMI], Universal Production Music

Opening Webb visualization credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Danielle Kirshenblat (STScI); Acknowledgment: VISTA, DSS, Akira Fujii

Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.

Complete transcript available.