NASA on Sunday successfully launched the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, sending the powerful new observatory on a mission to explore dark matter, dark energy and distant worlds beyond the solar system.
The telescope lifted off at 7:26 a.m. ET and separated from the rocket about 31 minutes later, beginning its journey toward the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point, roughly 1 million miles from Earth.
Roman is designed to conduct wide and deep infrared surveys of the universe, giving astronomers a far broader view of the sky than previous space telescopes.
Its field of view is at least 100 times larger than Hubble's, while its survey capabilities allow it to scan the sky at unprecedented speed.
The observatory is expected to map billions of galaxies, helping scientists investigate the nature of dark matter and dark energy, two of the universe's biggest unresolved mysteries.
In addition, Roman will search for planets orbiting other stars and conduct one of the most extensive studies of exoplanets ever undertaken.
The telescope is also equipped with advanced instruments designed to provide sweeping infrared views of the cosmos and support a broad range of astrophysics research.
Roman is expected to spend more than three months traveling to L2, where it will operate alongside NASA's James Webb Space Telescope.
The mission has a five-year primary lifetime and is intended to transform scientists' understanding of the universe through its wide-field surveys and observations of distant cosmic objects.