Glimpses of the First Stars

NASA's Roman Space Telescope, set to launch in 2027, will help capture 100,000 cosmic explosions

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NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is preparing to launch a deep-sky survey that could detect nearly 100,000 cosmic explosions.

These range from supernovae feeding black holes and could offer critical insights into dark energy, black hole physics, and the early universe.

At the heart of this effort is the High-Latitude Time-Domain Survey, which will scan the same vast region of the sky every five days for two years.

The goal: to catch transient phenomena like type Ia supernovae, which serve as cosmic distance markers because they shine with a known brightness.

Roman's sensitivity and reach could allow astronomers to spot ancient supernovae dating back more than 11.5 billion years, shedding light on the evolution of the cosmos.

Simulations suggest this ambitious program could reveal around 27,000 type Ia supernovae—nearly ten times more than all previous surveys combined.

These findings could refine measurements of how fast the universe has expanded over time and provide new evidence about the nature of dark energy, the mysterious force believed to drive the accelerating expansion of the universe.

Illuminating dark energy

"Whether you want to explore dark energy, dying stars, galactic powerhouses, or even entirely new things we've never seen before, this survey will be a gold mine," says Benjamin Rose, an assistant professor at Baylor University, who led a recent study on the project.

The results appear in The Astrophysical Journal.

The survey's design—frequent, deep imaging of the same region means scientists will be able to piece together time-lapse views of distant space, essentially creating cosmic movies.

Type Ia supernovae will be a primary target because they allow scientists to trace the universe's expansion across different eras.