We’re excited to announce that we’ve selected five new surveys for the soon-to-launch Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope! These observations will unveil myriad worlds, provide dazzling looks at globular clusters and two nearby galaxies, and examine the early universe in unprecedented detail. Here’s a preview of each new survey.
This ground-based image of the Andromeda Galaxy highlights the large field of view of NASA's soon-to-launch Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, with Hubble's field of view and a full moon shown for comparison.
Mapping Andromeda & Triangulum
One Roman survey will take spying on the neighbors to the extreme, creating the most detailed mosaics ever of two of the closest big galaxies to the Milky Way: Andromeda and Triangulum. Roman will observe each galaxy repeatedly, ultimately mapping more than half a billion stars in 3D and monitoring how they move and change over time.
That will help astronomers reconstruct how the galaxies formed and evolved, including how they’ve interacted with each other over the course of billions of years. Astronomers will better understand how stars are born, live, and die in galaxies beyond our own.
The survey will also probe each galaxy’s dark matter underpinnings. This mysterious material doesn’t emit light or interact with normal matter except gravitationally, yet it accounts for the vast majority of the universe’s mass. Watching how gravity guides the movement of stars in these galaxies will help astronomers trace the distribution of both normal and dark matter in exquisite detail.
NASA's Kepler space telescope, shown in this artist's concept, revealed that there are more planets than stars in the Milky Way galaxy. NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will extend Kepler's legacy by covering the same area in even sharper detail, which is sure to unearth many more planets and other objects.
Kepler Revisited
As NASA's first dedicated planet-hunting mission, the Kepler space telescope searched a slice of our galaxy for Earth-sized planets. Now, Roman is set to retrace Kepler's footsteps, covering the same area in even sharper detail.
The Roman-Kepler Legacy Survey will capture detailed images of all 200,000 objects Kepler observed, including over 4,000 stars that may host planets. And Roman’s more powerful view will reveal things Kepler was unable to see, adding up to about 17 million stars and brown dwarfs — in-between objects that are too heavy to be classified as planets, but not quite massive enough to become stars.
The survey will also probe Tatooine-like worlds that orbit pairs of stars. These stellar couples are so close that they easily blur together, which is why we need a crisp view like Roman’s to tell them apart.
This image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captures what looks like a galactic glitter bomb in the night sky. Called 47 Tucanae, this stellar collection is one of about 150 globular star clusters in our Milky Way galaxy. While previous telescopes have only observed small pieces of it at a time, Roman will capture it in its entirety in a single snapshot. In about one week of observation time, NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will survey this cluster and three others covering a total area that would take NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope around 18 years to cover, while matching its resolution.
Globular Cluster Survey
Roman’s globular cluster survey will take the most complete inventory ever of stars in four relatively nearby groups of ancient, densely packed stars: M4, NGC 6397, 47 Tucanae, and Omega Centauri.
In just one week of observation time, Roman will survey a total area that would take NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope around 18 years to cover, while matching its resolution. That will help astronomers tally up and map their hundreds of thousands of stars while identifying very faint objects, like brown dwarfs.
This is a Hubble Space Telescope view of a portion of GOODS-South, the southern field of a large deep-sky study by several observatories to trace the formation and evolution of galaxies. The image shows a rich tapestry of 7,500 galaxies stretching back through most of the universe's history. The farthest galaxies, a few of the very faint red specks, are seen as they appeared more than 13 billion years ago, or roughly 650 million years after the big bang.
Baby Galaxies
The GRACE (Grism Reionization and Cosmic Evolution) Survey will spend about 2.5 weeks peering far into the universe’s past to hunt for some of the earliest galaxies. Its main goal is to shed light on how the cosmos transitioned from being filled with an opaque gas to becoming crystal clear, allowing light to travel across the universe.
This is the era when the first galaxies began lighting up the cosmos. The GRACE survey aims to find ten times more of the earliest known galaxies than all other telescopes have discovered to date. Scientists will be able to see how galaxies, stars, black holes, and the cosmic web evolved from the dawn of the universe to the present day.
The eXtreme Deep Field, or XDF, was assembled by combining 10 years of NASA Hubble Space Telescope photographs taken of a patch of sky at the center of the original Hubble Ultra Deep Field. NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will conduct a similar observation covering a patch of sky more than 140 times larger.
Extreme Deep Field
The RXDF (Roman eXtreme Deep Field) will stare deep into a small patch of sky, essentially collecting a cosmic core sample. This mega-exposure will be similar to but more than 140 times larger than Hubble’s eXtreme Deep Field.
And instead of taking a single snapshot, Roman will repeat the observations over time. Stitching together a detailed time-lapse of a relatively large chunk of the early universe will help astronomers track how the earliest galaxies, black holes, and other structures formed and changed across cosmic history. The observations could also catch some of the first supernova explosions and show how they shaped the early cosmos.
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope’s three main observing programs, highlighted in this infographic, will enable astronomers to view the universe as never before, revealing billions of cosmic objects strewn across enormous swaths of space-time.
All of this is in addition to Roman’s three core surveys and first announced bonus survey, which will transform our view of the universe. Follow along with Roman’s road to launch at nasa.gov/roman, and virtually tour the Roman observatory here.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!
[Image description: the first two photos show a Build-a-Bear plushie Gollum wearing a dark blue velvet vest over a pink Hawaiian shirt and sitting in front of a tree and on a bench swing in a park. The second two are photos of the back and front of the vest against a white background. End image description.]
For sale, Gollum vest, never worn 😔😔
Obviously my contribution to the ephemera extravaganza had to be Gollum clothes!! Since he was a hobbit (and in book canon is kind of implied to be from a well-off family) I wanted to make him a color coded vest to match the main hobbits. I picked dark blue cause it makes me think of shadows and how beautiful nighttime can be which suits early gollum! I'm not an expert hand sewer but this was soooo much fun (and this was my first patternless project!) I love getting silly inspiration for projects!!!!!
Welcome to The Amazing Digital Circus! My name is Caine! I'm your ringmaster, and I'm here to show you the most jaw-dropping, heart-stopping, mind-bending paraphernalia you've ever laid your eyes upon!
The Amazing Digital Circus Episode 1 - Pilot
+ NEW UPLOAD: MD SPECIAL IS RELEASED, A DAY IN LIFE OF J
Murder Drones Special - Meet J
Description: J shows a bit of her life in this Murder Drones special! Also ALL NEW J figures, plushies and more at https://murderdrones.store 15% off all Murder Drones items till July 31st!
Written and directed by Zach Preciado and Micah Preciado
Based on the original series created by Liam Vickers
Watch Machina continues this week with Campaign 1 episode 57, "Duskmeadow" !
From Monday, July 27th until Sunday, August 2nd, we're rewatching and reacting to the fifty-seventh episode of Campaign 1, which you can watch here or directly on YouTube. You can also follow along with this Linkable Transcript over on Kryogenix, and if you plan to liveblog, don't forget to tag your posts #watch machina !
The announcements end at 10:10. The intro and recap end at 13:47. The break begins at 2:08:28, and the second half begins at 2:22:43. (All timestamp links open a separate tab to YouTube)
Watch Machina continues this week with Campaign 1 episode 56, "Hope" !
Apologies for the one week delay, but, to be fair, it was beacuse of Critical Role : I was in Edinburgh last week and I may have forgotten to queue posts properly.
From Monday, July 20th until Sunday, July 26th, we're rewatching and reacting to the fifty-sixth episode of Campaign 1, which you can watch here or directly on YouTube. You can also follow along with this Linkable Transcript over on Kryogenix, and if you plan to liveblog, don't forget to tag your posts #watch machina !
The announcements end at 9:24. The intro and recap end at 13:58. The break begins at 2:12:58, and the second half begins at 2:28:47. (All timestamp links open a separate tab to YouTube)
stormborns
pixelskylines
vaporwave
turnnoffyourmind
germansingergirl
areudirty
gamechangershow
dailybridgerton
andulkaphoto
