NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Stories

NASA builds its next flagship space telescope to map the dark universe

Lead center managing Roman's development, integration, and testing

NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is fully built and targeting a September 2026 launch — eight months ahead of schedule. Its 300-megapixel infrared camera has a field of view 100 times wider than Hubble's and will photograph a billion galaxies and discover more than 100,000 new worlds in its first five years.

Updated May 31

The K2-18b biosignature hunt

New Capabilities

Center for skeptical reanalysis of biosignature claims

Cambridge astronomers announced they'd found dimethyl sulfide and dimethyl disulfide in the atmosphere of K2-18b—molecules that, on Earth, only life produces. The detection using JWST's mid-infrared instrument hit 3-sigma confidence, meaning a 0.3% chance it's statistical noise. If real, it's the strongest evidence yet of biology beyond our solar system.

Updated May 19