NASA’s Roman telescope just opened its planet-hunting eye

NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has completed an important series of tests showing that it can keep its gaze extremely steady during observations. From Sept. 15 to 21, engineers tested Roman's fine-guidance system, which helps the observatory remain precisely locked onto its targets. Then, on Sept. 22, the telescope's Coronagraph Instrument received cosmic light for the first time.

Roman's primary science instrument, the Wide Field Instrument, contains 18 detectors. Engineers designated a small section of each detector to rapidly monitor a different guide star -- stars whose positions are already known with high precision.

Roman's attitude control system first points the spacecraft toward the correct area of the sky. The fine-guidance system then continuously tracks those reference stars and supplies information that helps the observatory correct tiny movements during an exposure. Without those additional adjustments, Roman would not remain steady enough to produce its sharpest possible images.