Nancy Grace Roman: NASA's First Chief Astronomer, The Mother of Hubble

Nancy Grace Roman: NASA's First Chief Astronomer, The Mother of Hubble  

In a time when women were discouraged from studying math and science, Nancy Grace Roman became a research astronomer and the first Chief of Astronomy at NASA. Known today as the "Mother of Hubble," she was instrumental in taking the Hubble Space Telescope from an idea to reality and establishing NASA's program of space-based astronomical observatories. Celebrate Women's History Month by listening to more of her story.

The Roman Space Telescope is a NASA observatory designed to settle essential questions in the areas of dark energy, exoplanets, and infrared astrophysics. The telescope has a primary mirror that is 2.4 meters in diameter (7.9 feet), and is the same size as the Hubble Space Telescope's primary mirror. The Roman Space Telescope will have two instruments, the Wide Field Instrument, and the Coronagraph Instrument.

The Wide Field Instrument will have a field of view that is 100 times greater than the Hubble infrared instrument, capturing more of the sky with less observing time. As the primary instrument, the Wide Field Instrument will measure light from a billion galaxies over the course of the mission lifetime. It will perform a microlensing survey of the inner Milky Way to find ~2,600 exoplanets. The Coronagraph Instrument will perform high contrast imaging and spectroscopy of individual nearby exoplanets.

The Roman Space Telescope will have a primary mission lifetime of 5 years, with a potential 5 year extended mission. It is set for launch in the mid-2020s.

Leaarn more about the Roman Space Telescope:

https://roman.gsfc.nasa.gov

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Katrina Jackson

Duration: 6 minutes, 21 seconds

Release Date: Feb 11, 2018

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