NASA's Roman space telescope gets ready to stare at distant suns to find alien planets

Scientists in white clean suits move a metallic honeycomb-like structure onto a rectangular piece of electronics covered in wires and components.

In a clean room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, scientists have successfully integrated a crucial component onto the Roman Space Telescope. This device, known as the Roman Coronagraph Instrument, is designed to block starlight, enabling scientists to detect the faint light from planets beyond our solar system.

This achievement marks a significant milestone for NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, a next-generation space observatory that will launch around May 2027. With a field of view at least 100 times larger than that of the Hubble Space Telescope, Roman will be used to investigate scientific mysteries related to dark energy, exoplanets, and infrared astrophysics.