Sign in Subscribe

discoveries

NASA’s Roman Space Telescope Primary Mirror Gets Last Look

- Engineers at NASA Goddard completed the final inspection of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope’s 7.9-foot (2.4 m) primary mirror, confirming no specks, coating defects, or misalignment. - The mirror has a silver coating under 400 nm, optimized for near‑infrared observations, and an average surface roughness of 1.2 nm (exceeding requirements). - The optics remain aligned after environmental testing; the observatory will be shipped to Kennedy Space Center ahead of an early September launch. - The mirror is made of ultralow‑expansion glass to minimize thermal deformation in space.

Source: Read the full article

Photo by @nasa / Unsplash

Read next

Hubble Captures M88 on Journey to Center of Virgo Cluster

Hubble Captures M88 on Journey to Center of Virgo Cluster

- Hubble imaged the active spiral galaxy Messier 88 (M88), about 63 million light‑years away. - M88 hosts a supermassive black hole ~100 million times the Sun’s mass and shows central gas outflows. - As a member of the Virgo Cluster, M88 is moving toward the cluster center

Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Poster

Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Poster

- Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope poster (image credit: NASA/Jenny Mottar) is available for download from NASA Science. - Three file options listed: print high-resolution PDF (144.47 MB), print high-resolution PNG (45.60 MB), and a smaller web PNG (3.75 MB). - Files and download links were

A Shift in What’s Shaping U.S. Landscapes

A Shift in What’s Shaping U.S. Landscapes

- NASA-funded study using ~35 years of Landsat data finds a shift: human-directed disturbances (logging, agriculture, construction) have declined while wild disturbances (wildfires, hurricanes, drought/wind) have increased. - Between 1988–2022 nearly 18% of U.S. land was disturbed; cumulative disturbance ≈700,000 sq mi; humans drove >446,