NASA’s Roman Telescope Ready to Detect Earth-Killer Asteroids

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, scheduled for launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida in late August, will feature a secondary mission to scan for hazardous near-Earth asteroids alongside its primary quest to study dark energy and dark matter, according to NASA. While designed primarily to map over a billion galaxies and discover thousands of new planets using a 300-megapixel infrared camera, the telescope’s ultra-wide field of view gives it unique planetary defense capabilities, researchers announced.

Roman Space Telescope Planetary Defense Capabilities and Field of View

The Roman Space Telescope possesses a field of view roughly 100 times larger than the Hubble Space Telescope, allowing it to image massive swaths of the cosmos simultaneously. According to Bryan Holler, a researcher at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, proposals to be presented at the Europlanet Science Congress in The Hague show that Roman’s infrared vision and wide perspective enable the detection of small asteroids down to 60 feet in length. This size is comparable to the asteroid that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013, releasing energy equivalent to an enormous amount of TNT and sending numerous people to the hospital, according to mission researchers.

Software Adjustments and Collaboration with JWST

Detecting space rocks with Roman requires minor software changes. Andy Rivkin, a planetary scientist and planetary defense researcher at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, notes that the telescope’s software normally discards streaks caused by cosmic rays, satellite interference, or moving asteroids because the observatory focuses on capturing clear deep-space imagery. Astronomers can manually inspect these discarded streaks to identify asteroid candidates. While Roman alone will not replace dedicated search engines, it will complement the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). According to Holler, Roman can provide infrared observations for significantly more asteroids than JWST can manage in a standard observation window, helping narrow down orbital trajectories before targeted tracking by other observatories.

Comparing NASA Planetary Defense Observatories

NASA relies on a network of ground-based telescopes alongside specialized space missions to catalog numerous near-Earth asteroids measuring 460 feet and larger, as well as many smaller city-killer objects. To address this, NASA is launching the Near-Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor in 2027 to find obscured asteroids from a vantage point between Earth and the Sun. Unlike ground-based instruments limited by Earth’s atmosphere, infrared-based space observatories like NEO Surveyor, the Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile—which is slated to locate many near-Earth asteroids during a 10-year survey—and Roman will work in tandem to refine orbit calculations and assess impact probabilities.

Frequently Asked Questions

When will the Roman Space Telescope launch?

NASA has scheduled the launch for late August from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, according to agency updates.

How big of an asteroid can Roman detect?

According to researchers, Roman’s infrared optics can spot space rocks as small as 60 feet in diameter, a size capable of causing severe regional damage similar to the 2013 Chelyabinsk impact.

Will Roman be the primary asteroid hunter for NASA?

No, Roman’s primary mission focuses on dark energy, dark matter, and exoplanets. Dedicated planetary defense assets like the upcoming NEO Surveyor are built specifically to find 90 percent of hazardous near-Earth objects.