NASA is currently constructing the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which aims to photograph worlds and dusty disks around nearby stars with details up to a thousand time better than other observatories.
Roman uses its Coronagraph Instrument that blocks out glare from distant stars to allow for better visibility of the planets in orbit around them. It may allow NASA to see Jupiter-like planets in visible light for the first time, according to NASA.
"To image Earth-like planets, we’ll need 10,000 times better performance than today’s instruments provide," Vanessa Bailey, an astronomer at JPL and the instrument technologist for the Roman Coronagraph, said. "The Coronagraph Instrument will perform several hundred times better than current instruments, so we will be able to see Jupiter-like planets that are more than 100 million times fainter than their host stars."
Roman will allow astronomers to view images of mature planets up to several billion years old for the first time ever. Previously, astronomers wouldn't have been able to see "smaller, cooler, dimmer planets orbiting much closer to their host stars."
The coronagraph will have be equipped with deformable mirrors that will counteract small imperfections that reduce image quality. Astronomers and technicians can use these mirrors to measure and subtract starlight in real time. Often, temperature changes affect the objects being observed and can slightly alter its shape.
The first target for Roman to image is called called Upsilon Andromedae d, a gas giant that is slightly larger than Jupiter. Prabal Saxena, an assistant research scientist at the University of Maryland, College Park and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and the lead author of a paper describing the results spoke about the target planet.
"This gas giant exoplanet is slightly larger than Jupiter, orbits within a Sun-like star’s habitable zone, and is relatively close to Earth – just 44 light-years away," Saxena said. "What’s really exciting is that Roman may be able to help us explore hazes and clouds in Upsilon Andromedae d’s atmosphere and may even be able to act as a planetary thermometer by putting constraints on the planet’s internal temperature!"
NASA's statement about Roman went on to add how important this may be for future discoveries and determining if there are other inhabitable planets.
"Using this technology, Roman will observe planets so faint that special detectors will count individual photons of light as they arrive, seconds or even minutes apart. No other observatory has done this kind of imaging in visible light before, providing a vital step toward discovering habitable planets and possibly learning whether we are alone in the universe," NASA said.
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is currently managed at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, with the participation by many different research organizations.
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