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By NASA
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will be a discovery machine, thanks to its wide field of view and resulting torrent of data. Scheduled to launch no later than May 2027, with the team working toward launch as early as fall 2026, its near-infrared Wide Field Instrument will capture an area 200 times larger than the Hubble Space Telescope’s infrared camera, and with the same image sharpness and sensitivity. Roman will devote about 75% of its science observing time over its five-year primary mission to conducting three core community surveys that were defined collaboratively by the scientific community. One of those surveys will scour the skies for things that pop, flash, and otherwise change, like exploding stars and colliding neutron stars.
These two images, taken one year apart by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, show how the supernova designated SN 2018gv faded over time. The High-Latitude Time-Domain Survey by NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will spot thousands of supernovae, including a specific type that can be used to measure the expansion history of the universe.Credit: NASA, ESA, Martin Kornmesser (ESA), Mahdi Zamani (ESA/Hubble), Adam G. Riess (STScI, JHU), SH0ES Team Called the High-Latitude Time-Domain Survey, this program will peer outside of the plane of our Milky Way galaxy (i.e., high galactic latitudes) to study objects that change over time. The survey’s main goal is to detect tens of thousands of a particular type of exploding star known as type Ia supernovae. These supernovae can be used to study how the universe has expanded over time.
“Roman is designed to find tens of thousands of type Ia supernovae out to greater distances than ever before,” said Masao Sako of the University of Pennsylvania, who served as co-chair of the committee that defined the High-Latitude Time-Domain Survey. “Using them, we can measure the expansion history of the universe, which depends on the amount of dark matter and dark energy. Ultimately, we hope to understand more about the nature of dark energy.”
Probing Dark Energy
Type Ia supernovae are useful as cosmological probes because astronomers know their intrinsic luminosity, or how bright they inherently are, at their peak. By comparing this with their observed brightness, scientists can determine how far away they are. Roman will also be able to measure how quickly they appear to be moving away from us. By tracking how fast they’re receding at different distances, scientists will trace cosmic expansion over time.
Only Roman will be able to find the faintest and most distant supernovae that illuminate early cosmic epochs. It will complement ground-based telescopes like the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, which are limited by absorption from Earth’s atmosphere, among other effects. Rubin’s greatest strength will be in finding supernovae that happened within the past 5 billion years. Roman will expand that collection to much earlier times in the universe’s history, about 3 billion years after the big bang, or as much as 11 billion years in the past. This would more than double the measured timeline of the universe’s expansion history.
Recently, the Dark Energy Survey found hints that dark energy may be weakening over time, rather than being a constant force of expansion. Roman’s investigations will be critical for testing this possibility.
Seeking Exotic Phenomena
To detect transient objects, whose brightness changes over time, Roman must revisit the same fields at regular intervals. The High-Latitude Time-Domain Survey will devote a total of 180 days of observing time to these observations spread over a five-year period. Most will occur over a span of two years in the middle of the mission, revisiting the same fields once every five days, with an additional 15 days of observations early in the mission to establish a baseline.
This infographic describes the High-Latitude Time-Domain Survey that will be conducted by NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. The survey’s main component will cover over 18 square degrees — a region of sky as large as 90 full moons — and see supernovae that occurred up to about 8 billion years ago.Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center “To find things that change, we use a technique called image subtraction,” Sako said. “You take an image, and you subtract out an image of the same piece of sky that was taken much earlier — as early as possible in the mission. So you remove everything that’s static, and you’re left with things that are new.”
The survey will also include an extended component that will revisit some of the observing fields approximately every 120 days to look for objects that change over long timescales. This will help to detect the most distant transients that existed as long ago as one billion years after the big bang. Those objects vary more slowly due to time dilation caused by the universe’s expansion.
“You really benefit from taking observations over the entire five-year duration of the mission,” said Brad Cenko of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, the other co-chair of the survey committee. “It allows you to capture these very rare, very distant events that are really hard to get at any other way but that tell us a lot about the conditions in the early universe.”
This extended component will collect data on some of the most energetic and longest-lasting transients, such as tidal disruption events — when a supermassive black hole shreds a star — or predicted but as-yet unseen events known as pair-instability supernovae, where a massive star explodes without leaving behind a neutron star or black hole.
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This sonification that uses simulated data from NASA’s OpenUniverse project shows the variety of explosive events that will be detected by NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope and its High-Latitude Time-Domain Survey. Different sounds represent different types of events, as shown in the key at right. A single kilonova seen about 12 seconds into the video is represented with a cannon shot. The sonification sweeps backward in time to greater distances from Earth, and the pitch of the instrument gets lower as you move outward. (Cosmological redshift has been converted to a light travel time expressed in billions of years.) Credit: Sonification: Martha Irene Saladino (STScI), Christopher Britt (STScI); Visualization: Frank Summers (STScI); Designer: NASA, STScI, Leah Hustak (STScI) Survey Details
The High-Latitude Time-Domain Survey will be split into two imaging “tiers” — a wide tier that covers more area and a deep tier that will focus on a smaller area for a longer time to detect fainter objects. The wide tier, totaling a bit more than 18 square degrees, will target objects within the past 7 billion years, or half the universe’s history. The deep tier, covering an area of 6.5 square degrees, will reach fainter objects that existed as much as 10 billion years ago. The observations will take place in two areas, one in the northern sky and one in the southern sky. There will also be a spectroscopic component to this survey, which will be limited to the southern sky.
“We have a partnership with the ground-based Subaru Observatory, which will do spectroscopic follow-up of the northern sky, while Roman will do spectroscopy in the southern sky. With spectroscopy, we can confidently tell what type of supernovae we’re seeing,” said Cenko.
Together with Roman’s other two core community surveys, the High-Latitude Wide-Area Survey and the Galactic Bulge Time-Domain Survey, the High-Latitude Time-Domain Survey will help map the universe with a clarity and to a depth never achieved before.
Download the sonification here.
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is managed at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, with participation by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California; Caltech/IPAC in Pasadena, California; the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore; and a science team comprising scientists from various research institutions. The primary industrial partners are BAE Systems, Inc. in Boulder, Colorado; L3Harris Technologies in Melbourne, Florida; and Teledyne Scientific & Imaging in Thousand Oaks, California.
By Christine Pulliam
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
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Last Updated Aug 12, 2025 EditorAshley BalzerLocationGoddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Dark Energy Neutron Stars Stars Supernovae The Universe Explore More
6 min read NASA’s Roman Mission Shares Detailed Plans to Scour Skies
Article 4 months ago 6 min read Why NASA’s Roman Mission Will Study Milky Way’s Flickering Lights
Article 2 years ago 7 min read One Survey by NASA’s Roman Could Unveil 100,000 Cosmic Explosions
Article 4 weeks ago View the full article
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By NASA
Technicians at the Astrotech Space Operations Facility near NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida conduct illumination testing on Friday, July 18, 2025, by flashing a bright light that simulates the Sun into the two-panel solar array that will help power the agency’s IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe) observatory on its upcoming journey to a destination about one million miles away from Earth Lagrange Point 1.Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett NASA invites media to view the agency’s IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe) spacecraft and two other missions — the Carruthers Geocorona Observatory and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Space Weather Follow On–Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1) observatory, which will launch along with IMAP as rideshares.
Media will have the opportunity to photograph the three spacecraft and speak with subject matter experts representing all three missions. The event will take place on Thursday, Aug. 28, at the Astrotech Space Operations payload processing facility in Titusville, Florida. Confirmed media will receive additional details after registering.
To participate in the event, media must RSVP by 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 19, by submitting their request online at: https://media.ksc.nasa.gov.
The IMAP mission will study the heliosphere, a vast magnetic bubble created by the Sun that protects our solar system from radiation incoming from interstellar space. Carruthers will use its ultraviolet cameras to monitor how material from the Sun impacts the outermost part of Earth’s atmosphere. The SWFO-L1 mission will observe solar eruptions, and monitor incoming space weather 24/7, providing early warnings and validating forecasts that protect vital communication and navigation infrastructure, economic interests, and national security, both on Earth and in space.
NASA is targeting no earlier than September for the launch of these three missions on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
NASA’s media accreditation policy is available online. For questions about accreditation, please email: ksc-media-accreditat@mail.nasa.gov.
Facility Access
Due to spacecraft cleanliness requirements, this invitation is open to a limited number of media with no more than two individuals per media organization. This event is open to U.S. citizens who possess a valid government-issued photo identification and proof of U.S. citizenship, such as a passport or birth certificate.
Media attending this event must comply with cleanroom guidelines. This includes wearing specific cleanroom garments; avoiding cologne, cosmetics, and high-heeled shoes; cleaning camera equipment under the supervision or assistance of contamination control specialists; and placing all electronics in airplane mode in the designated areas near the spacecraft. NASA will provide detailed guidance to approved media.
Observatories Information
The three observatories are preparing to launch to Lagrange point 1, which lies about a million miles from Earth toward the Sun. There, they will orbit this gravitational balance point, holding a steady position between Earth and the Sun. NASA’s IMAP will use its 10 instruments to map the heliosphere’s edge and reveal how the Sun accelerates charged particles, filling in essential puzzle pieces to understand the space weather environment across the solar system. The mission’s varied instruments also will provide near real-time space weather data to scientists on Earth.
The Carruthers observatory will image the glow of ultraviolet light emitted by the uppermost parts of Earth’s atmosphere — called the geocorona — to help researchers understand how our planet’s atmosphere is shaped by conditions in space. NOAA’s SWFO-L1 will use its suite of instruments to sample the solar wind and interplanetary magnetic field, while its onboard coronagraph will detect coronal mass ejections and other solar events. Together, these real-time observations of space weather enable precautionary actions to protect satellites, power grids, aviation, and communication and navigation technology.
Learn more about NASA’s IMAP at:
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/imap/
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Abbey Interrante
Headquarters, Washington
301-201-0124
abbey.a.interrante@nasa.gov
Sarah Frazier
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
202-853-7191
sarah.frazier@nasa.gov
Leejay Lockhart
Kennedy Space Center, Florida
321-747-8310
leejay.lockhart@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Aug 08, 2025 LocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
NASA Headquarters Carruthers Geocorona Observatory (GLIDE) Goddard Space Flight Center Heliophysics Heliophysics Division IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe) Kennedy Space Center Space Weather The Sun View the full article
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By NASA
Explore Hubble Science Hubble Space Telescope As NASA Missions Study… Hubble Home Overview About Hubble The History of Hubble Hubble Timeline Why Have a Telescope in Space? Hubble by the Numbers At the Museum FAQs Impact & Benefits Hubble’s Impact & Benefits Science Impacts Cultural Impact Technology Benefits Impact on Human Spaceflight Astro Community Impacts Science Hubble Science Science Themes Science Highlights Science Behind Discoveries Hubble’s Partners in Science Universe Uncovered AI and Hubble Science Explore the Night Sky Observatory Hubble Observatory Hubble Design Mission Operations Missions to Hubble Hubble vs Webb Team Hubble Team Career Aspirations Hubble Astronauts Multimedia Images Videos Sonifications Podcasts e-Books Online Activities 3D Hubble Models Lithographs Fact Sheets Posters Hubble on the NASA App Glossary News Hubble News Social Media Media Resources More 35th Anniversary Online Activities 4 min read
As NASA Missions Study Interstellar Comet, Hubble Makes Size Estimate
Hubble captured this image of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS on July 21, 2025, when the comet was 277 million miles from Earth. Hubble shows that the comet has a teardrop-shaped cocoon of dust coming off its solid, icy nucleus. Image: NASA, ESA, David Jewitt (UCLA); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI) A team of astronomers has taken the sharpest-ever picture of the unexpected interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS using the crisp vision of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. Hubble is one of many missions across NASA’s fleet of space telescopes slated to observe this comet, together providing more information about its size and physical properties. While the comet poses no threat to Earth, NASA’s space telescopes help support the agency’s ongoing mission to find, track, and better understand near-Earth objects.
Hubble’s observations allow astronomers to more accurately estimate the size of the comet’s solid, icy nucleus. The upper limit on the diameter of the nucleus is 3.5 miles (5.6 kilometers), though it could be as small as 1,000 feet (320 meters) across, researchers report. Though the Hubble images put tighter constraints on the size of the nucleus compared to previous ground-based estimates, the solid heart of the comet presently cannot be directly seen, even by Hubble. Observations from other NASA missions including the James Webb Space Telescope, TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite), and the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, as well as NASA’s partnership with the W.M. Keck Observatory, will help further refine our knowledge about the comet, including its chemical makeup.
Hubble also captured a dust plume ejected from the Sun-warmed side of the comet, and the hint of a dust tail streaming away from the nucleus. Hubble’s data yields a dust-loss rate consistent with comets that are first detected around 300 million miles from the Sun. This behavior is much like the signature of previously seen Sun-bound comets originating within our solar system.
The big difference is that this interstellar visitor originated in some other solar system elsewhere in our Milky Way galaxy.
3I/ATLAS is traveling through our solar system at a staggering 130,000 miles (209,000 kilometers) per hour, the highest velocity ever recorded for a solar system visitor. This breathtaking sprint is evidence that the comet has been drifting through interstellar space for many billions of years. The gravitational slingshot effect from innumerable stars and nebulae the comet passed added momentum, ratcheting up its speed. The longer 3I/ATLAS was out in space, the higher its speed grew.
“No one knows where the comet came from. It’s like glimpsing a rifle bullet for a thousandth of a second. You can’t project that back with any accuracy to figure out where it started on its path,” said David Jewitt of the University of California, Los Angeles, science team leader for the Hubble observations.
The paper will be published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. It is already available on Astro-ph.
New Evidence for Population of Wandering Space Relics
“This latest interstellar tourist is one of a previously undetected population of objects bursting onto the scene that will gradually emerge,” said Jewitt. “This is now possible because we have powerful sky survey capabilities that we didn’t have before. We’ve crossed a threshold.”
This comet was discovered by the NASA-funded Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) on July 1, 2025, at a distance of 420 million miles from the Sun. ATLAS is an asteroid impact early warning system developed by the University of Hawai’i.
In the meantime, other NASA missions will provide new insight into this third interstellar interloper, helping refine our understanding of these objects for the benefit of all. 3I/ATLAS should remain visible to ground-based telescopes through September, after which it will pass too close to the Sun to observe, and is expected to reappear on the other side of the Sun by early December.
The Hubble Space Telescope has been operating for more than three decades and continues to make ground-breaking discoveries that shape our fundamental understanding of the universe. Hubble is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope and mission operations. Lockheed Martin Space, based in Denver, also supports mission operations at Goddard. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, conducts Hubble science operations for NASA.
To learn more about Hubble, visit: https://science.nasa.gov/hubble
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Related Images & Videos
Comet 3I/ATLAS
Hubble captured this image of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS on July 21, 2025, when the comet was 277 million miles from Earth. Hubble shows that the comet has a teardrop-shaped cocoon of dust coming off its solid, icy nucleus.
Comet 3I/ATLAS Compass Image
This image of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera on July 21, 2025. The scale bar is labeled in arcseconds, which is a measure of angular distance on the sky. One arcsecond is equal an angular measurement of 1/3600 of o…
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Last Updated Aug 07, 2025 Editor Andrea Gianopoulos Location NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Contact Media Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov
Ray Villard
Space Telescope Science Institute
Baltimore, Maryland
Related Terms
Hubble Space Telescope Astrophysics Astrophysics Division Comets Goddard Space Flight Center Small Bodies of the Solar System The Solar System
Related Links and Documents
Science Paper: Hubble Space Telescope Observations of the Interstellar Interloper 3I/ATLAS, PDF (1.57 MB)
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