#FridayFunFact – June 19th, 2026

The Nancy Grace Roman Telescope is NASA’s next premier space telescope, named after NASA’s first chief astronomer, Nancy Grace Roman, who is considered to be the ‘mother of the Hubble Space Telescope’. It will have a field of view of the universe which is, at least, 100 times larger than the Hubble Space Telescope, which will allow it to measure light from a billion or more galaxies in it’s expected lifetime.

It has the ability to block starlight from distance stars, allowing it to more easily see exoplanets, and planet-forming disks, which will allow it to complete a census of planetary systems in our galaxy, and help scientists to settle questions in the areas of dark energy, exoplanets, and infrared astrophysics.

NASA are also currently accepting name submissions until July 12th – where they will put all of the names onto a permanently attached SD card – meaning your name can be on the telescope forever. See here: https://my.nasa.gov/specialevents/s/send-your-name-with-nancy-roman

Right: A conceptual image of the Nancy Grace Roman Telescope
Credit: NASA / Goddard Space Flight Center