Produced by: BT Desk Designed by: Manoj Kumar
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California has successfully integrated the Roman Coronagraph Instrument into the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, a key component designed to block out starlight and enable the detection of exoplanets.
Credit : NASA
The Roman Coronagraph will serve as a technology demonstration, paving the way for future missions like the proposed Habitable Worlds Observatory. This telescope will aim to directly image Earth-like planets and search for signs of life.
Credit : NASA
The Roman Space Telescope is set to launch in May 2027. With a field of view 100 times larger than Hubble’s, it will study dark energy, exoplanets, and infrared astrophysics using its Wide Field Instrument and the new coronagraph.
Credit : NASA
The coronagraph is designed to block the bright light of distant stars, allowing the telescope to capture faint light from planets orbiting these stars. This technology will improve direct imaging of exoplanets, moving beyond current indirect detection methods.
Credit : NASA
Existing methods, such as transit photometry, can only detect exoplanets that pass directly in front of their stars, which limits the number of planets that can be studied. This new instrument will expand the scope by enabling direct imaging of distant planets.
Credit : NASA
The coronagraph can detect planets that are 100 million times fainter than their stars, significantly improving on current space-based coronagraphs. This advancement will allow for the observation of exoplanets that are too faint to detect by existing technologies.
Credit : NASA
The coronagraph was attached to the telescope’s Instrument Carrier, a grid-like structure that supports the telescope’s primary mirror and spacecraft components. This step is crucial in preparing the telescope for its planned mission.
With the coronagraph now integrated, engineers will proceed with additional checks before adding the Wide Field Instrument. Once all components are integrated, the telescope will undergo further tests ahead of its planned launch in 2027.