How NASA's new space telescope could help solve mysteries of dark energy and dark matter

Key Points:

• NASA launched the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, a $4 billion project designed to study the universe on a much larger scale than previous telescopes.
• The Roman telescope will survey space 1,000 times faster than Hubble, with a wide-angle lens and a mirror the same diameter as Hubble's, enabling it to discover up to 100,000 new exoplanets.
• One of Roman's primary missions is to investigate dark energy and dark matter, which together make up 95% of the universe but remain largely mysterious to scientists.
• The telescope will use techniques like gravitational lensing to study invisible forces by observing how gravity bends light, potentially providing new insights into the nature of dark matter and dark energy.
• Named after NASA's first female astronomer Nancy Grace Roman, the telescope will complement other space observatories such as Hubble, James Webb, and Chandra by identifying targets for more detailed follow-up observations.