On Sunday, NASA successfully launched its new $4bn Nancy Grace Roman flagship space telescope from Florida. It was carried into space by SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket. The telescope is heading to Lagrange Point 2, which is 1.6 million km from Earth, and its mission is scheduled to last at least five years.

The observatory functions like a wide-angle lens, offering the same resolution as the Hubble Telescope but able to map the universe up to 100 times faster. It can thus complete a month's worth of observations of the Milky Way in a time that would take Hubble an entire century.

The telescope's main task will be to create the most comprehensive 3D map of the universe, explore more than two billion galaxies, and help uncover the nature of dark energy and dark matter, which make up as much as 95% of the universe.

The instrument will also conduct an extensive search for thousands of new exoplanets. This unique project launched nine months earlier than originally planned.

(Reuters, max)