Telescope equipped with German technology launched into space
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman space telescope is to explore dark matter, among other things. The Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg is playing an important role.
Cape Canaveral (dpa/d.de) - US space agency NASA has launched a new space telescope into outer space. Aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope was blasted off into space on Saturday from the Cape Canaveral space station in Florida. One of its main objectives will be to explore dark matter and dark energy.
The Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) in Heidelberg, NASA’s sole direct German partner, played a key role in developing the Coronagraph Instrument (CGI), a new instrument for studying exoplanets. The CGI blocks out bright starlight to make the faint light of near exoplanets visible and combines coronagraphy with adaptive optics to enable precise observations in space.
“The CGI aboard the Roman Space Telescope is the most technically sophisticated device for optical observations ever operated in space for scientific research,” says Oliver Krause, who heads the Infrared Space Astronomy Research Group at MPIA.
MPIA researchers planned, developed, manufactured and tested key optomechanical elements for the CGI. The company von Hoerner & Sulger in Schwetzingen supported the construction process.
