Astrophysics Colloquium: Widening our gaze with the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope

Watch Zoom recording; Passcode: H&V#E2LA

Abstract: The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is a NASA flagship mission planned to launch in Fall 2026. With a 2.4-meter primary mirror wide field of view, and efficient survey mode operations, Roman can survey the sky 1,000 times faster than the Hubble Space Telescope while maintaining comparable sensitivity and resolution. Roman's mission includes large-scale surveys to probe the nature of dark energy through multiple complementary approaches, including weak gravitational lensing, galaxy clustering, and Type Ia supernovae observations. The observatory will also conduct a comprehensivemicrolensing survey to complete a statistical census of exoplanetsacross a wide range of masses and orbital distances, detecting planetsthat other methods cannot reach. Beyond these programs, Roman's wide-field capabilities will enable transformative investigations in stellar populations, galactic structure, transient phenomena, and the high-redshift universe. In this talk, I will describe the mission's science objectives, current development status, and expected performance of the Roman observatory.