According to New Scientist, NASA's Roman telescope is the agency's newest space observatory. Its speed is striking: every 10 months, it will gather the equivalent of about 1,000 years' worth of Hubble observations. That capability could let astronomers map the universe in unprecedented detail.
The telescope's main target is the dark sector. Dark matter and dark energy together are thought to dominate the cosmos, yet their nature remains unknown. Roman's wide, rapid surveys may reveal how these invisible forces shape galaxies and the expansion of the universe.
Whether Roman will definitively answer those questions remains to be seen. But the telescope is designed to test the leading ideas, and its observations could push current theories forward or overturn them.