A Cornell researcher is helping NASA prepare an instrument designed to directly image distant planets in visible light aboard the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.
The observatory, targeting launch no earlier than Aug. 30, is expected to survey dark matter and dark energy while finding about 100,000 exoplanets during a mission of at least five years.
Cornell faculty member Dmitry Savransky is a principal investigator supporting Romanās coronagraph, which blocks the direct light of stars and other bright objects. He has helped select targets and determine the best times to observe them.
Researchers hope images of large, Jupiter-like planets will help advance the technology needed to directly observe smaller, potentially habitable worlds.
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