91直播 astronomer helps lead NASA's Roman Space Telescope mission
A University of Manchester astronomer is helping to lead NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope mission, which is due to launch from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on 30 August 2026 aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.
The $4.3 billion Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is NASA's next flagship astrophysics mission that will investigate the nature of dark matter and dark energy, study how galaxies have evolved over cosmic time, and discover more than 100,000 planets beyond our Solar System.
Using a powerful 2.4-metre mirror, Roman will conduct fast, detailed scans of the sky in infrared light. The telescope will combine Hubble-quality imaging but with a field of view that is more than 200 times larger. Scientists estimate that observations Roman can complete in a day would take the Hubble Space Telescope around four years to achieve.
The mission will also generate an unprecedented volume of data. Roman is expected to capture around 1.4 terabytes of observations every day, producing more than 500 terabytes of data each year. By comparison, the Hubble Space Telescope has collected around 400 terabytes during more than 35 years of operation.
Dr Eamonn Kerins, from Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at The University of Manchester was appointed by the European Space Agency to the Roman mission. He leads the Exoplanet Demographics Working Group for the Transits in the Roman Exoplanets Survey (TRExS), one of two science teams working with Roman data to find planets around other stars. TRExS will focus on planets orbiting closer to their host star.
Dr Kerins is also a member of the Roman Galactic Exoplanets Survey (RGES). RGES will use the gravitational lensing effect to find planets further out from their hosts. Roman is the first survey to combine two detection methods to gain a more complete picture of distant planetary systems. Dr Kerins was also part of the Roman Observations Time Allocation Committee (ROTAC), the NASA panel responsible for determining the mission's final survey design.
The mission is expected to discover more than 100,000 planets orbiting other stars, dramatically increasing the number of known exoplanets and helping astronomers build the most comprehensive picture yet of planetary systems across our galaxy. NASA Senior Project Scientist Julie McEnery, who helps to lead Roman's scientific programme, is also a Physics alumna of The University of Manchester.
鈥淎fter 15 years of preparing for this mission it is a tremendous privilege to join Roman colleagues at Cape Canaveral to see Roman lift off on the start of an amazing science adventure. The science we expect Roman to deliver will be simply incredible, transforming our understanding of planets around other stars, including the first true measurement of how many planets in our Galaxy are temperate like Earth. But the voracious discovery potential of Roman is such that the biggest revelations may those we haven鈥檛 yet thought about.鈥�
Scientists believe about 25% of the Universe consists of dark matter and around 70% of dark energy, yet neither is fully understood. Roman will study tiny changes in the shapes of millions of galaxies to map the distribution of matter and dark matter and trace how galaxies evolved. The mission will also investigate how the Universe has expanded over time and why that expansion appears to be speeding up, with dark energy thought to be the driving force behind it.
Beyond its studies of exoplanets and the dark Universe, Roman will observe black holes, quasars and other rare cosmic events, providing astronomers with new insights into some of the most extreme objects in the Universe.
The mission follows the launch of the European Space Agency's Euclid space telescope in 2023, another major international astronomy mission involving researchers from The University of Manchester. Together, Euclid and Roman will provide complementary observations that will help scientists better understand the evolution and structure of the Universe.
Roman is expected to operate for at least five years, producing vast quantities of data that will be used by astronomers around the world to address some of the most important unanswered questions in astrophysics.
Roman is scheduled to launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from NASA鈥檚 Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA on 30 August 2026 at 07:26 EDT /12:26 BST / 13:26 CEST. Watch the launch live via NASA鈥檚 channel. Follow for updates.