A photo of juvenile lobsters being reared at the UK National Lobster Hatchery before release into the wild was named a finalist for Ocean Photographer of the Year 2026. The image is part of a broader roundup of standout science photography from the past month, curated by Nature's photo team.
nature.com
· 2026-09-01
NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launched Sunday atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, about eight months earlier than planned. The spacecraft separated successfully and is now heading toward the Sun-Earth L2 point, roughly 1 million miles away, where it will settle into a stable orbit alongside Earth over the next three months.
cnet.com
· 2026-08-31
NASA's $4.3 billion Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launched Sunday from Kennedy Space Center aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, bound for a location four times farther than the Moon. The observatory carries a 300-megapixel camera built with a repurposed spy satellite mirror and offers a field of view 100 times wider than Hubble's. It is only the second NASA-led astrophysics flagship mission launched this century, after Webb in 2021, and notably arrived at the pad ahead of its own deadline.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-08-31
NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope lifted off from Kennedy Space Center aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, beginning its mission to investigate dark matter and dark energy. Shortly after launch, the telescope successfully deployed its solar panels and sun shade, with remaining instruments set to activate in coming weeks. First images are expected in early 2027, with the observatory eventually beaming back 1.4 terabytes of data daily.
engadget.com
· 2026-08-30
During NASA's post-launch news conference for the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, Administrator Jared Isaacman stepped away mid-briefing to take a call, then returned to let President Trump address reporters and officials over speakerphone. Trump praised the launch's television coverage, complimented Isaacman's leadership, and noted his administration's funding for the agency.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-08-30
NASA successfully launched the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which will spend three months traveling roughly one million miles to reach its observation post at the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point. Once there, it will scan the cosmos with a field of view 100 times wider than Hubble's and a speed 1,000 times faster, using a 300-megapixel infrared camera and a coronagraph that blocks starlight to reveal orbiting planets.
theverge.com
· 2026-08-30
NASA has named its next major space observatory after Nancy Grace Roman, the agency's first chief astronomer and a key figure behind Hubble. The telescope will offer a field of view at least 100 times wider than Hubble's, allowing it to capture light from potentially a billion galaxies over its operational life.
science.nasa.gov
· 2026-08-29
NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, ahead of its upcoming launch, carries a hand-sized experimental coronagraph designed to directly capture starlight reflected off a planet's surface for the first time from space. The instrument uses deformable mirrors and adaptive optics to block a star's glare while revealing much fainter orbiting planets, a technique already used on ground telescopes but never before flown at this level of sophistication in orbit.
wired.com
· 2026-08-29
NASA plans to launch the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on Aug. 30, a $4.3 billion observatory built from a spare satellite donated by the National Reconnaissance Office roughly 15 years ago. The telescope will search for Type 1A supernovas and study dark energy, the mysterious force driving the universe's expansion, while also hunting for exoplanets.
npr.org
· 2026-08-28
NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is scheduled to launch Sunday from Kennedy Space Center aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. The $4.3 billion observatory began as a surveillance satellite platform built by the National Reconnaissance Office for post-9/11 intelligence gathering, which was donated to NASA after the spy program was scrapped before launch.
futurism.com
· 2026-08-28
NASA is preparing to launch the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on Sunday at 7:26 a.m. ET from Kennedy Space Center, using a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. The telescope, arriving roughly eight months early and under budget, will travel to the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point about 1 million miles away after final inspections and fueling with 290 gallons of hydrazine.
cnet.com
· 2026-08-27
NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is scheduled to launch from Kennedy Space Center on 30 August after completing vibration testing at Goddard Space Flight Center. The telescope's wide field of view and infrared sensitivity are expected to let it survey far more sky in far less time than the Hubble Space Telescope, dramatically expanding the catalog of known exoplanets.
nature.com
· 2026-08-27