Washington — NASA has renamed its next-generation Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope after Nancy Roman, the agency's first chief astronomer known as the Mother of Hubble.
NASA plans to launch the Roman Space Telescope in the mid-2020s.
The Roman Space Telescope has a silvered primary mirror array that is 2.4-meters wide, about the same size as the Hubble's.
The Roman will include the 300-megapixel Wide Field Instrument, which has a field of view 100 times greater than the Hubble's infrared instrument.
One image from the Roman will hold as much detail as 100 Hubble images.
In addition, the new telescope will carry the Coronagraph Instrument, a high-contrast imaging and spectroscopy device.
The Roman will survey the Milky Way with the aim of finding around 2,600 exoplanets.
Its primary mission will last five years, with another five in a potential extended mission.
NASA also plans to use the Roman Space Telescope to find clues about dark energy, which could yield the key to understanding the expansion of the cosmos.
