NASA launchs the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on 8/30/2026 — NASA's next big step in exploring the universe: hunting for exoplanets and studying two of the biggest mysteries in science — dark matter and dark energy.

 

Liftoff! NASA's newest space telescope launched today at 7:26 a.m. EDT aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Meet the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope — NASA's next big step in exploring the universe.

It's now on a 30-day journey to its new home nearly a million miles from Earth, a spot called Lagrange Point 2. Once it settles in, it will spend about 3 months getting ready before starting its real mission: hunting for exoplanets and studying two of the biggest mysteries in science — dark matter and dark energy.

Here's why this telescope is so special: it can see over 100 times as much sky as Hubble. That means it can scan the whole Milky Way in about a month — something that would take Hubble nearly a century to do.

Using this huge view, scientists expect Roman to find up to 100,000 new planets outside our solar system. For comparison, we've only discovered around 6,000 planets total in the last 30 years combined.

It's named after Nancy Grace Roman, NASA's first-ever chief astronomer, who also helped make the famous Hubble Space Telescope happen.

What do you hope Roman discovers first — another Earth, a rogue planet, or something we've never even imagined?

Credit: NASA

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