SPACEX launches Roman on a Falcon Heavy rocket from Nasa’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.—X/SpaceX
• Roman designed to shed light on ‘unsolved mysteries’ including dark matter and dark energy• Also aims to discover thousands of exoplanets and supernovae• With its infrared vision, telescope will be able to detect light emitted by celestial objects billions of years ago
WASHINGTON: Nasa launched its new flagship space telescope on Sunday, embarking on a multi-year mission to create an unprecedented map of the cosmos and shed light on some of the biggest mysteries in physics.
Designed to take a panoramic view of the vast reaches of space, the Roman Space Telescope “will help unlock the secrets of the universe”, US President Donald Trump said on Friday during a ceremony at Nasa headquarters in Houston, Texas.
Standing over 12 metres (39 feet) tall, the state-of-the-art observatory launched from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.
