Space Telescope Science Institute
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05/14/2026
NASA’s next great space telescope will be in the sky before you know it! The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope could launch as early as September 2026, and NASA’s Universe of Learning has the resources to get you and your community ready to join in the excitement.
We’ve gathered background information on the mission, videos, hands-on activities, and helpful guides for planning Roman-related events. Get ready to explore the universe with Roman: https://www.universe-of-learning.org/informal-educators/roman-launch-resources
Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio.
Zoom in on the Milky Way’s galactic bulge, a densely packed region of stars that also houses our galaxy’s supermassive black hole. Its crowded field of view is useful for detecting objects, typically stars, that pass between us and the bulge using a phenomenon known as microlensing. In this process, an intervening object warps the light from a background star in the bulge. Astronomers theorize that this technique will reveal more than a thousand new exoplanets, some free-floating and some orbiting stars.
A team of astronomers utilized the Hubble Space Telescope to observe the same region that the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will in its Galactic Bulge Time-Domain Survey, which will enable a more thorough analysis of these microlensing events.
Credit: NASA, Alyssa Pagan (STScI); Sean Terry (UMD), Jay Anderson (STScI), 2MASS, IPAC/CALTECH, ESO, VVV Survey, Dante Minniti (UNAB), Ignacio Toledo (ALMA), Martin Kornmesser (ESO).
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