Nasa’s new telescope is named after astronomer Nancy Grace Roman – but who was she?

Dr Nancy Grace Roman at Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, around 1972. Nasa/Esa, CC BY

Nasa has named its latest flagship space telescope after the American scientist Nancy Grace Roman. Roman’s contributions to astrophysics should have made her famous, yet many people will never have heard of her.

For decades, astronomers have been spoiled with stunning data and imagery from the Hubble Space Telescope, which was launched into Earth orbit in 1990. In 2021, the James Webb space telescope (JWST) was sent into space as Hubble’s successor. Since then, JWST has identified some of the earliest stars and galaxies to form after the Big Bang and has made a host of other amazing discoveries.