MIT Technology Review is reporting that NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, set to launch from Kennedy Space Center in Florida at the end of August, could serve a dual purpose beyond its primary mission of understanding dark matter and dark energy. It said a multi-institutional team of planetary scientists and astronomers will outline in September how the telescope is uniquely positioned to aid in Earth's defense against killer asteroids.
The publication said Roman, named after NASA's first chief astronomer, is equipped with a super-wide-angle, 300-megapixel infrared camera, allowing it to survey a vast area of space. This capability, which is 100 times larger than the Hubble Space Telescope's field of view, enables it to discover thousands of new planets, exploding stars, and survey over a billion galaxies. While performing these tasks, it will also be looking through our solar system, making it well-placed to spot asteroids.
MIT Technology Review reported that the idea for Roman to contribute to planetary defense emerged in July 2025, following renewed threats of significant funding cuts by the Trump administration. Bryan Holler, a researcher at the Space Telescope Science Institute, and his colleagues will present a proposal at the Europlanet Science Congress in The Hague, Netherlands, detailing how Roman's wide field-of-view and infrared vision can spot small asteroids up to 60 feet long, comparable to the one that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013. It noted that Roman's software would require adjustments to identify asteroids, as it is currently designed to discard such 'streaks' as glitches.
The publication said Roman's strength lies in complementing other observatories like the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the Near-Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor, and the Vera Rubin Observatory. Roman's large field of view allows it to quickly observe multiple questionable asteroids, providing infrared data that can significantly improve the precision of their orbits. It can also offer estimates of an asteroid's size and composition, crucial information for assessing impact damage or planning deflection missions. While NEO Surveyor is explicitly a planetary defense observatory, Roman will contribute to protecting Earth from cosmic catastrophes while pursuing its primary scientific goals.
Full Article: NASA’s new dark energy space telescope can also detect killer asteroids