The Starlight Sleuth: Can NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Telescope Crack the Code? The next great leap in space exploration may not be a giant leap for mankind, but rather a subtle refinement of existing technology.
NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is set to launch with an experimental coronagraph, a device capable of directly capturing starlight reflected off a planet's surface – a feat previously thought impossible.
This technological innovation relies on adaptive optics, which deforms the telescope's mirror to cancel out light distortions caused by the atmosphere.