Earlier this year, budget cuts threatened the future of NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. This telescope, with capabilities that rival 200 Hubble Space Telescopes, is now on track for its launch in 2027. One of its first missions? To explore the universe’s empty regions, known as “voids.”
Voids are vast areas with very few galaxies. They might not seem important, but they could be dominated by dark energy, a mysterious force pushing our universe to expand. Understanding dark energy is tricky, but a recent paper in The Astrophysical Journal outlines how Roman will help researchers study these voids.
Nancy Grace Roman was a trailblazer in American astronomy. Her work on the Hubble Space Telescope changed how we view the cosmos. The new telescope named after her aims to take our understanding even further.
Like the James Webb Space Telescope, Roman will capture images in infrared light, but it will cover at least 100 times more area than Hubble. The telescope has three programs focusing on galaxies, exoplanets, and supernovae.
The High-Latitude Wide-Area Survey (HLSS) will be particularly important for studying cosmic voids. It will use gravitational lensing and galaxy clustering to understand how dark energy affects the universe. Scientists believe Roman could discover and analyze thousands of voids during its operational life.
Giulia Degni, an astrophysicist from Roma Tre University, points out the challenge: “To detect voids, we need to spot faint galaxies.” Using Roman, astronomers aim to map the locations of these sparse galaxies.
After gathering data, researchers will analyze the shapes and characteristics of these voids. They will look at the positions and redshifts of galaxies to understand dark energy and how it changes over time. Think of it like figuring out a cake recipe based on the final cake’s appearance. Alice Pisani from Princeton University explains, “If the cake doesn’t look right, we need to adjust the ingredients.”
Astronomical models suggest voids should generally be spherical. To check this, researchers will stack images of detected voids. If the edges aren’t symmetrical, it could indicate something unusual about the universe’s structure.
While the telescope is still being prepared in Maryland, astronomers are excited about what it might reveal. Even though we may have to wait a while for results, the potential insights into dark energy and the cosmos promise to be thrilling.
For ongoing updates, you can follow the developments at NASA’s official site.
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