The telescope is named after physicist Nancy Grace Roman, who was Nasa’s first chief astronomer in the 1960s and its first female executive.
During her career, she was instrumental in getting the Hubble Space Telescope approved by US Congress and later said its most interesting discovery was dark energy.
The new telescope is similarly expected to revolutionise our understanding of the Universe, including through investigating dark energy. It has a five-year primary lifespan with a goal to operate for 10 years.
Nasa says its “crisp, sweeping surveys will help scientists investigate dark energy and dark matter, discover and characterise exoplanets, map billions of galaxies, study black holes, and explore objects from our own solar system to the edge of the observable Universe.”
The origins of dark matter and dark energy remain unknown, but they are believed to make up about 95% of the Universe.
Dark matter, which is invisible, acts as a kind of gravitational glue, while dark energy is believed to be a repulsive force driving the Universe’s expansion.
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