Think of it as Yoga for the brain, we are going to stretch a bit.
Nancy Grace Roman: The World Is Not Flat, We Went to the Moon, and Women Are Just as Smart and Capable as Men—She Proved It All
The woman known as the “Mother of Hubble” helped create NASA’s space-astronomy program and turned an impossible telescope into reality. Now humanity’s most advanced observatories bears her name.
Some truths should no longer require an argument.
The Earth is not flat. Americans walked on the Moon. And women are every bit as intelligent, determined and capable as men.
Nancy Grace Roman spent her life proving that last point—although she should never have needed to.
Born in Nashville in 1925, Roman became fascinated by the night sky as a child. When she was only 11 years old, she organized an astronomy club with her classmates. By seventh grade, she knew she wanted to become an astronomer.
The adults around her were not particularly encouraging.
A high-school counselor questioned why a girl would want to take algebra instead of Latin. The head of the physics department at Swarthmore College told Roman that he normally discouraged women from studying physics—but suggested that perhaps she “might make it.”
That was considered encouragement in those days.
Roman did much more than “make it.” She earned a bachelor’s degree in astronomy from Swarthmore in 1946 and a doctorate from the University of Chicago in 1949.
She studied stars at the University of Chicago’s Yerkes Observatory and became a respected astronomer. But she also recognized an unpleasant reality: women were rarely given permanent academic positions, regardless of their talent or accomplishments.
Rather than accept the limits other people placed on her, Roman changed direction. She joined the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and entered the emerging field of radio astronomy.
Then, in 1959—only months after NASA itself was created—she was offered an opportunity to establish the agency’s space-astronomy program.
Roman became NASA’s first chief of astronomy and its first female executive.
The Mother of Hubble
Nancy Grace Roman did not personally polish Hubble’s mirror or tighten its bolts. Her contribution was even more fundamental: she helped make sure the telescope existed in the first place.
During the 1960s and 1970s, the idea of placing a massive telescope in orbit sounded enormously ambitious, expensive and politically difficult. Astronomers understood the advantages, but scientific enthusiasm alone could not produce the necessary funding, engineering or congressional approval.
Roman brought scientists and engineers together to decide what such a telescope should accomplish. She organized planning committees, helped establish its scientific priorities, briefed government officials and repeatedly made the case to NASA and Congress.
The project was originally known simply as the Large Space Telescope. Years later, it became the Hubble Space Telescope.
According to NASA’s biography of Roman, she spent nearly two decades building support for the project. Her successor at NASA, astronomer Ed Weiler, eventually gave her the nickname that followed her for the rest of her life: the “Mother of Hubble.”
Hubble launched in 1990 and transformed our understanding of the universe. It helped astronomers measure the universe’s expansion, examine distant galaxies, study the birth and death of stars, investigate black holes and produce some of the most recognizable scientific images ever taken.
Before Hubble could look billions of light-years into space, however, Nancy Grace Roman had to convince people here on Earth that it was worth building.
More Than Hubble
Roman’s legacy extends beyond a single telescope.
She helped establish space-based astronomy as a serious and permanent part of NASA’s mission. She supported the Orbiting Astronomical Observatories, the International Ultraviolet Explorer and the Cosmic Background Explorer.
These programs demonstrated that telescopes above Earth’s atmosphere could observe parts of the universe that ground-based instruments could not see clearly—or could not see at all.
Roman understood that NASA should not merely launch astronauts and spacecraft. It should also place powerful scientific instruments above the atmosphere and make their discoveries available to researchers around the world.
She helped create the foundation for the system of great space observatories that eventually included Hubble, Chandra, Spitzer and the James Webb Space Telescope.
Putting Her Name in the Heavens
In 2020, NASA renamed a new observatory originally called the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope, or WFIRST.
Its new name became the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.
NASA explained that Roman’s leadership and vision helped turn the agency into a pioneer in space-based astrophysics. Naming the new observatory after her recognized not only her work on Hubble, but her broader role in creating NASA’s modern astronomy program.
The choice is especially appropriate because Roman extends the work Hubble began.
The two telescopes have primary mirrors of approximately the same size—2.4 meters, or 7.9 feet—but they look at the universe differently. Hubble can examine a relatively small area in extraordinary detail. Roman’s powerful 300-megapixel Wide Field Instrument can capture an area of the sky at least 100 times larger than Hubble’s infrared camera.
Think of Hubble as an extraordinarily powerful telephoto lens. Roman is the panoramic camera.
The telescope will survey enormous portions of the infrared universe, helping scientists investigate dark energy, dark matter, distant galaxies and planets orbiting other stars. It will allow astronomers to study millions of galaxies and conduct a statistical census of planetary systems throughout the Milky Way. NASA describes the Roman mission and its capabilities here.
She Should Never Have Had to Prove It
Nancy Grace Roman died in 2018 at the age of 93.
During her lifetime, she went from being a girl discouraged from studying algebra to becoming the woman who helped place humanity’s greatest eye in the sky.
That is progress—but it is also an indictment of the obstacles she was forced to overcome.
Roman should not have needed to demonstrate that a woman could understand physics, lead scientists, manage major government programs or persuade Congress to support an unprecedented engineering project. Intelligence has never belonged to one sex. Neither has leadership, imagination or scientific ability.
But when the world demanded proof, Nancy Grace Roman provided it.
The Earth is not flat. We went to the Moon. Women are just as smart and capable as men.
And today, one of the most advanced telescopes humanity has ever constructed carries the name of the woman who helped make modern space astronomy possible.
So What Is It Going to Do a Million Miles Away from Earth?
Roman is not going into a conventional orbit around Earth like Hubble. It will travel approximately one million miles into space to the second Sun–Earth Lagrange point, known as L2—the same general region occupied by the James Webb Space Telescope.
That is roughly four times farther away than the Moon.
L2 is a location where the gravitational forces of the Sun and Earth work together with a spacecraft’s motion around the Sun. This allows Roman to remain in a relatively stable position compared with Earth without constantly burning fuel to stay there.
Roman will not sit perfectly still at L2. It will trace a large looping path around the point called a halo orbit. Webb follows a similar path, but the two observatories will remain separated by hundreds of thousands of miles.
This distant location gives Roman a stable environment, a clear view of the universe and the ability to keep the Sun, Earth and Moon on the same side of the spacecraft. That makes it easier to protect the telescope from heat and unwanted light.
But why send a telescope a million miles away?
Because Roman is being built to examine some of the biggest questions in existence.
Photographing the Bigger Picture
Hubble has given us extraordinarily detailed images of relatively small areas of the sky. Roman will combine similar sharpness with a dramatically wider view.
Its primary instrument, the Wide Field Instrument, is a 300-megapixel infrared camera. A single Roman image will capture a section of sky approximately one-and-a-half times the apparent size of the full Moon while maintaining resolution comparable to Hubble.
Roman’s field of view will be at least 100 times larger than Hubble’s infrared view.
Think of Hubble as a powerful telephoto lens that examines one distant object in exceptional detail. Roman is the panoramic camera capable of photographing the entire surrounding neighborhood.
That panoramic ability will allow Roman to survey enormous portions of the universe much faster than Hubble could. It will observe stars by the billions and galaxies by the millions, producing a massive public archive that astronomers will be examining for decades.
Looking for the Universe We Cannot See
Most of the universe appears to consist of things we cannot directly see or fully explain.
The ordinary matter that makes up stars, planets, buildings, trees and human beings represents only a small percentage of everything believed to exist. The rest appears to be dominated by two mysterious components known as dark matter and dark energy.
Dark matter does not produce light, but its gravity influences how galaxies form, move and cluster together. Astronomers can detect its effects even though they cannot see the material itself.
Dark energy is the name scientists have given to whatever is causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate.
Roman will observe enormous numbers of galaxies and exploding stars across vast distances. By carefully measuring their positions, shapes and movement, astronomers hope to map the distribution of dark matter and determine how dark energy has affected the universe over billions of years.
Nancy Grace Roman reportedly considered Hubble’s contribution to the discovery of the universe’s accelerating expansion one of its most exciting accomplishments. It is particularly fitting that the telescope bearing her name will now investigate that mystery on a much larger scale.
NASA provides additional explanations of Roman’s planned investigations into dark matter and dark energy.
Searching for Other Worlds
Roman will also search for planets outside our solar system, known as exoplanets.
One of its major surveys will repeatedly observe a dense field of stars near the center of the Milky Way. Roman will look for the temporary brightening that occurs when the gravity of an unseen object bends and magnifies the light of a more distant star.
This phenomenon is called gravitational microlensing.
Using it, Roman could discover thousands of planets—including planets orbiting distant stars and possibly “rogue planets” traveling through the galaxy without a parent star.
Roman’s second instrument, the Coronagraph Instrument, will take a different approach. It will block the overwhelming glare from nearby stars so scientists can detect the much fainter reflected light of planets orbiting them.
Photographing a planet beside its star is somewhat like trying to see a firefly next to a lighthouse from hundreds of miles away. Roman’s coronagraph is a technology demonstration designed to prove that we can suppress enough starlight to see older and colder Jupiter-like planets directly.
The technology will help prepare the way for NASA’s proposed Habitable Worlds Observatory, which would attempt to photograph Earth-like planets orbiting other stars and search their atmospheres for possible signs of life.
Roman is not intended to replace Hubble or Webb. Each telescope has different strengths, and they will work together.
Roman can rapidly survey a large area and identify unusual galaxies, exploding stars, black holes or possible planets. Hubble can then examine selected objects using ultraviolet, visible and infrared light. Webb can use its larger mirror and extremely sensitive infrared instruments to study particularly interesting targets in much greater detail.
Roman will find the neighborhood. Hubble and Webb can inspect individual houses.
Roman will also work alongside the European Space Agency’s Euclid mission and the ground-based Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile. Scientists will combine their different observations to create a more complete picture of the universe than any single observatory could provide.
Roman’s surveys may discover objects scientists have not even thought to search for. That happened repeatedly with Hubble: some of its most important discoveries were never included in its original mission plan.
Roman’s data will be released publicly after it is processed, allowing scientists throughout the world to analyze the same observations simultaneously.
More Than 1.3 Million People Are Going Along
Roman will not travel alone.
NASA invited members of the public to submit their names for inclusion on a memory card attached to the spacecraft. More than 1.3 million people participated.
Their names will travel with Roman all the way to L2.
It is a symbolic gesture, but an appropriate one. Roman belongs not only to NASA or the scientists who constructed it. Its discoveries will become part of humanity’s shared knowledge of the universe.
How Long Will Roman Operate?
Roman’s primary scientific mission is planned to last at least five years. The observatory is designed to support another five-year extended mission if its equipment remains healthy and sufficient fuel is available.
Fuel will probably determine Roman’s ultimate lifespan. NASA does not currently have a routine way to service observatories stationed at L2, although Roman has been designed so that it could potentially be refueled by a future spacecraft.
Following launch, Roman must complete a carefully planned sequence of deployments, equipment checks, calibrations and orbital adjustments before beginning normal scientific operations.
NASA expects to release Roman’s first science images in early 2027.
When those first pictures arrive, they will represent much more than another collection of attractive space photographs. They will mark the beginning of a survey that could change what we know about planets, galaxies, dark matter, dark energy and the structure of the universe itself.
Nancy Grace Roman spent her career convincing people that humanity needed large telescopes in space.
Now the telescope carrying her name is going a million miles from Earth to show us just how right she was.
