NASA发射首个以女性科学家命名的太空望远镜

美国国家航空航天局（NASA）于8月30日通过SpaceX的猎鹰重型火箭从佛罗里达州卡纳维拉尔角成功发射了Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope，这是NASA历史上首个以女性科学家命名的太空望远镜1。该望远镜总预算超过40亿美元，将进行为期三个月的旅程，前往日地第二拉格朗日点（L2）轨道，距地球约160万公里12。

这架望远镜拥有强大的观测能力，其视场是哈勃望远镜的100倍，巡天速度比哈勃快1000倍2。望远镜配备了300百万像素红外摄像机和日冕仪系统，可直接成像系外行星2。NASA科学任务主任Nicky Fox表示，"它将找到数千颗超新星、数万颗行星、数十亿个星系和数百亿颗恒星"1。望远镜预计在2027年初返回首批图像，年数据生成量将超过500TB1。

这架望远镜以Nancy Grace Roman的名字命名，她是NASA 1960-1970年代的首位天文学总负责人1。该项目旨在深入研究宇宙中的暗物质和暗能量2。

NASA successfully launched the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on August 30, 2026, via SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, marking the first space telescope named after a female scientist 1. The observatory, with a total budget exceeding $4 billion, will travel approximately one million miles to reach its destination at the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange Point over the course of three months 12. The telescope is expected to transmit its first images in early 2027 1.

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will dramatically advance astronomical capabilities compared to its predecessor. Its field of view is 100 times larger than the Hubble Space Telescope, and it can survey the sky 1,000 times faster using a 300-megapixel infrared camera 2. The instrument can accomplish in one month what Hubble requires 100 years to observe 1. Additionally, the telescope features a coronagraph system capable of directly imaging exoplanets 2. NASA Science Mission Directorate head Nicky Fox stated that "it will find thousands of supernovae, tens of thousands of planets, billions of galaxies, and tens of billions of stars" 1, while senior project scientist Julie McEnery added that "Roman's expansive coverage will enable us to find the strange, rare, and unusual" 1. The mission will generate over 500 terabytes of data annually 1 and is designed to study dark matter and dark energy in the universe 2. The telescope is named after Nancy Grace Roman, who served as NASA's first Chief of Astronomy during the 1960s and 1970s 1.