NASA's Roman Mission to Reveal Universe's Dark Side

Upcoming telescope to map hundreds of millions of galaxies and study dark matter and dark energy

Published on Feb. 10, 2026

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NASA's upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will conduct a wide-area survey covering over 5,000 square degrees of the sky, revealing hundreds of millions of galaxies across cosmic time. Astronomers will use this data to study the universe's shadowy underpinnings - dark matter and dark energy - by analyzing the distortion of distant galaxies through gravitational lensing and measuring the expansion of the universe through redshift analysis.

Why it matters

Understanding dark matter and dark energy, which make up over 95% of the universe, is one of the biggest unsolved mysteries in cosmology. The Roman telescope's wide-area survey will provide unprecedented data to help unravel these cosmic puzzles and reveal new insights about the fundamental nature of the universe.

The details

The High-Latitude Wide-Area Survey planned for the Roman telescope will cover about 12% of the sky and combine powerful imaging and spectroscopy to map hundreds of millions of galaxies. Astronomers will use this data to precisely measure the distortion of distant galaxies through gravitational lensing, creating a 3D map of the distribution of both visible and dark matter. They will also analyze the redshift of galaxies to trace the expansion of the universe over cosmic time, revealing frozen echoes of ancient sound waves that can provide clues about dark energy.

  • The Roman telescope is scheduled to launch as soon as this fall.
  • The High-Latitude Wide-Area Survey is planned to cover over 5,000 square degrees of sky in just under a year and a half.

The players

Ryan Hickox

A professor at Dartmouth College and co-chair of the committee that shaped the design of the Roman telescope's wide-area survey.

David Weinberg

An astronomy professor at Ohio State University who played a major role in devising the Roman telescope's wide-area survey.

Olivier Doré

A senior research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory who leads a team focused on Roman imaging cosmology with the High-Latitude Wide-Area Survey.

Risa Wechsler

The director of Stanford University's KIPAC (Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology) and co-chair of the committee that shaped the design of the Roman telescope's wide-area survey.

Nancy Grace Roman

The namesake of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

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What they’re saying

“We set out to build the ultimate wide-area infrared survey, and I think we accomplished that. We'll use Roman's enormous, deep 3D images to explore the fundamental nature of the universe, including its dark side.”

— Ryan Hickox, Professor, Dartmouth College (Mirage News)

“This survey is going to be a spectacular map of the cosmos, the first time we have Hubble-quality imaging over a large area of the sky. Even a single pointing with Roman needs a whole wall of 4K televisions to display at full resolution. Displaying the whole high-latitude survey at once would take half a million 4K TVs, enough to cover 200 football fields or the cliff face of El Capitan.”

— David Weinberg, Astronomy Professor, Ohio State University (Mirage News)

“Cosmic acceleration is the biggest mystery in cosmology and maybe in all of physics. Somehow, when we get to scales of billions of light years, gravity pushes rather than pulls. The Roman wide area survey will provide critical new clues to help us solve this mystery, because it allows us to measure the history of cosmic structure and the early expansion rate much more accurately than we can today.”

— David Weinberg, Astronomy Professor, Ohio State University (Mirage News)

“The data analysis standards required to measure weak gravitational lensing are such that the astronomy community as a whole will benefit from very high-quality data over the full survey area, which will undoubtedly lead to unexpected discoveries. This survey will accomplish much more than just revealing dark energy!”

— Olivier Doré, Senior Research Scientist, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Mirage News)

“Roman is exciting because it covers such a wide area with the image quality only available in space. This enables a broad range of science, from things we can anticipate studying to discoveries that we haven't thought of yet.”

— Risa Wechsler, Director, Stanford University KIPAC (Mirage News)

What’s next

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is scheduled to launch as soon as this fall, with the High-Latitude Wide-Area Survey planned to begin shortly after.

The takeaway

The Roman telescope's wide-area survey will provide unprecedented data to help unravel the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy, which make up over 95% of the universe. By precisely mapping the distribution of matter and tracing the expansion of the cosmos over cosmic time, the survey will offer new insights into the fundamental nature of the universe.