Last, we unwrapped
"Real gifts from Artemis!"
Today, our next gift is
a wholenew way to
investigate the universe.

Case file: Roman.
Suspect: whatever is
making cosmic
expansion speed up!

Meet the Nancy Grace
Roman Space
Telescope, named for
NASA’s first chief
astronomer—the
“Mother of Hubble.”

Roman’s case: dark
energy, dark matter,
and worlds beyond
our solar system!

Before space came a
very careful road trip!
CHARIOT is
Roman’s specially built,
climate-controlled
portable clean room.

Even cosmic
detectives need a
spotless ride.

Image Source: NASA
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/roman-space-telescope/

Roman’s primary
mirror is 2.4 meters
across—the same
diameter as
Hubble’s.

But its
300-megapixel Wide
Field Instrument
captures at least
100 times Hubble’s
sky area in one
image!

Same-sized mirror.
Much bigger cosmic
crime scene.

Dark energy 
is our
name for the 
mystery behind 
accelerating
expansion.
Dark matter 
reveals
itself through
gravity. They
 are not 
the same
suspect!

Roman will trace
cosmic history and
gravitational
lensing for clues.

Its coronagraph will
also test advanced
starlight-blocking
technology to reveal
faint planets and
disks.

August 30, 2026:
Roman lifted off
aboard a SpaceX
Falcon Heavy from
Kennedy Space
Center!

That is not my 
heart pounding.
Okay.
It is absolutely my
heart pounding.

Next stop: an orbit
around Sun–Earth L2,
about 1.5 million
kilometers from
Earth.

A three-month
journey toward an
excellent infrared
observing
neighborhood!

This graphic 
shows 
Roman’s
journey—not
a live location
tracker.

L2 lies beyond Earth, away
from the Sun. Roman will
orbit around that region,
not park motionless on a dot!

Now meet Roman’s
teammate: 
the James
Webb Space
Telescope—
JWST, or Webb.

Roman:
wide surveys.
Webb: sensitive,
detailed investigations.

Think crime-scene
panorama versus a
close examination of
one fascinating
clue.

Roman can find
interesting events
across huge areas;
Webb can investigate
suitable targets in
greater detail.

Webb also reaches
farther into the
infrared, helping
study early galaxies
and exoplanet
atmospheres.

And when Webb
finds a strange
galaxy, Roman can
show the
wider neighborhood.
Teamwork, not a
telescope
tournament!

Quark Star! 
Roman and
Webb sound like
complementary
sensors in a self-driving
car. Is Webb the
LiDAR and Roman the
wide-view camera?

Great mechanic’s instinct,
Mzee: different views
can work together!

My excitement is
officially hammer
-powered!

One important repair
to that analogy:
LiDAR sends laser
pulses and measures
their return.
Neither Roman 
nor Webb works that way!

A better match is a
wide surveying
camera plus a highly
sensitive
close-study
camera—both
collecting light
from space.

Analogy tuned.
Curiosity engine at
full throttle!

Excellent! My
curiosity engine
just broke the dial.

I heard
about SPHEREx
before! Where
does that fit in
this detective
squad?

SPHEREx maps the
entire sky in 102
infrared colors,
measuring spectra
that reveal more
than an
ordinary picture.

Its clues include
the universe’s
earliest expansion,
the combined glow
of galaxies, and
cosmic ices.

SPHEREx supplies an
all-sky spectral overview.
Roman studies selected
large regions with
much sharper, deeper
infrared views.

So: a broad
inventory of the
whole workshop, and
a detailed
inspection of
important sections?

Exactly, Mzee Fundi!
Different coverage,
different tools,
stronger clues
together.

My pure passionate
heart approves!

And Kepler’s K2? I
remember that
planet-hunting hero
too!

Kepler became
famous for transits:
planets making tiny
dips in starlight.
K2 continued its work
after a pointing-
system failure.

K2 also tried
microlensing in a
dedicated 2016
campaign toward the
crowded Galactic
bulge.

Microlensing is a
temporary
brightening when a
foreground object’s
gravity bends a
background star’s
light. A planet
can add a brief
extra clue.

K2’s campaign helped
demonstrate the
method. Roman makes
it a core survey,
repeatedly
monitoring crowded
fields for cold and
free-floating worlds.

Not just planets
hugging their stars, then!

Right! Expect more
than a thousand
microlensing planet
discoveries—not a
guaranteed final count.

My heart just found
another gear!

One more
trailblazer: the
Vera C. Rubin
Observatory in Chile!
Unlike Roman,
it observes
from the ground.

Vera Rubin and her
colleague Kent Ford
studied galaxy
rotation and helped
establish convincing
evidence for dark
matter.

Roman’s name honors
a space-astronomy
pioneer. Rubin’s
honors a pioneer of
the dark-universe
case.

Rubin released its
first images in June
2025. Its ten-year
Legacy Survey
of Space and
Time is designed to
repeatedly record
the changing sky.

Roman’s infrared
surveys and Rubin’s
repeated ground-
based views can add
complementary clues
about galaxies, dark
matter, and dark
energy.

Here’s to
women
who widened
our universe!

And the next
generation of
discoverers!

More brilliant
minds. More
brilliant
questions!

A universe-sized
cheer!

Dark Energy Detective:
Roman’s Case is open!
We have the instruments.
Now we wait for the clues.

After early December
2026, we’ll return
for an arrival-check
episode—and report
Roman’s actual
mission status, not
promise an
unconfirmed 
arrival date.

Quark Star signing off.
One passionate heart,
one very big universe!