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[Music throughout] The Wide Field Instrument is the heart of the Nancy Grace

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Roman Space Telescope. The basic design is the same as

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telescopes around the world. Light enters through Roman's 2.4-meter

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aperture, and is reflected and focused by the curved main mirror.

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More elements tighten the beam, and strip it of stray light rays

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before it passes through the filter wheel. This wheel has a

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variety of filters that allow different wavelengths of light to pass through.

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It spins from one to another depending on what the researcher is looking for.

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FInally, the focused and filtered light reaches the focal plane,

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where it creates an image on the detectors. In Roman's case,

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there are 18 detectors, allowing it to create 300-million-pixel images

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of large patches of the sky. This combination of image size

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and detail has never been possible on a space-based telescope before,

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and will make the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope an indispensible

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tool in the future.