NASA Announces Plan to Map Milky Way With Roman Space Telescope

https://www.nasa.gov/missions/roman-space-telescope/nasa-announces-plan-to-map-milky-way-with-roman-space-telescope/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nn202541 The team behind NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has released detailed plans for a major survey that will reveal our home galaxy, the Milky Way, in unprecedented detail. In one month of observations spread across two years, the survey will unveil tens of billions of stars and explore previously uncharted structures. “The Galactic Plane Survey will revolutionize our understanding of the Milky Way,” said Julie McEnery, Roman’s senior project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “We’ll be able to explore the mysterious far side of our galaxy and its star-studded heart. Because of the survey’s breadth and depth, it will be a scientific mother lode.” The survey will cover nearly 700 square degrees along the glowing band of the Milky Way—our edge-on view of the disk-shaped structure containing most of our galaxy’s stars, gas, and dust. Scientists expect the survey to map up to 20 billion stars and detect tiny shifts in their positions with repeated high-resolution observations, and it will only take 29 days spread over the course of the mission’s first two years.