The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is planning to launch the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope into space in August 2026. Named after NASA’s first chief of astronomy, the telescope is set to explore largely uncharted regions of the Milky Way. With a field of view 100 times larger than the Hubble telescope, this new optical instrument might identify about 100,000 previously unknown planets orbiting distant stars. To date, fewer than 6,300 exoplanets have been discovered.

The Roman telescope will use two complementary detection methods: planetary transits, which look for planets by measuring dips in starlight; and microlensing, which uses the pull of gravity to spot planets that are otherwise extremely difficult to find, including Earth-sized ones with inhabitable zones.

Research suggests that a star’s chemical composition influences the types of planets that form around it, and Roman’s sweeping survey of hundreds of millions of stars could determine how common our type of solar system is in the universe. The novel telescope will also gather atmospheric data on thousands of planets, which has never been done before. All of this information will be shared publicly, enabling researchers and citizen scientists worldwide to maximize the scientific discoveries.