Narottam Sahoo

Every clear night, the sky tells us that we are part of a Universe so much greater than ourselves. Since ancient times, mankind has looked upwards in wonder, asking questions about the stars, the origins of the cosmos, and our place in it. Those timeless questions inspired navigation, shaped civilisations, and ultimately gave birth to modern astronomy.

Breakthroughs of the past have pushed back the frontier of human knowledge, from Galileo’s first telescope to today’s space observatories. Hubble, Chandra and James Webb telescopes have uncovered stunning galaxies, stellar nurseries, black holes and some of the first light in the history of the cosmos. The big questions, nevertheless, remain. What is dark matter and dark energy? Why is the universe accelerating? Where did galaxies come from? Are there other Earth-like worlds that could contain life?

These questions will be answered in a new era of discovery with NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which is set to launch on 30 August 2026. Roman’s sharp vision will be nearly 100 times larger than the Hubble Telescope’s field of view, allowing it to survey huge swaths of the sky and map hundreds of millions of galaxies, revealing countless new cosmic phenomena. Roman is more than a telescope; it represents humanity’s unquenchable curiosity — a brave explorer ready to illuminate the Universe’s greatest mysteries and inspire generations to dream beyond the stars…read more on NOPR