NASA's Roman Space Telescope is about to level up our view of the Milky Way
NASA's new Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is getting ready to scan over 300,000 red giant stars—using a mirror as big as Hubble's but with a view 100 times wider.
Every 12 minutes, it'll check in on hundreds of millions of stars, helping scientists hunt for exoplanets and learn what makes these ancient stars tick.
Biggest-ever star study using stellar "quakes"
Roman will use asteroseismology (basically, tracking star "quakes") to figure out the mass, size, and age of these red giants.
Early guesses were around 290,000 stars studied this way—but now it could reach up to 648,000!
That's more data than anyone's ever had for this kind of research.
Why does this matter?
All that info won't just help us understand these giant stars—it'll also give clues about where planets can survive and maybe even thrive.
Plus, we might spot hidden young stars in our galaxy's core.
The telescope launches between October 2026 and May 2027—so space fans have something big to look forward to!