North Carolina Central University is one of 14 higher education institutions and government agencies in the U.S. contributing to NASA’s next space telescope known as the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.
Duke University is the project’s lead. According to Diane Markoff, NCCU’s physics professor, N.C. Central is the only HBCU participating in the project for now.
The Nancy Grace Telescope is NASA’s next tool that will launch into space to help look at things, like dark energy, which causes the expansion of the universe. It will also analyze how that expansion is accelerating.
N.C. Central will contribute to the project by collecting data as well as detecting and measuring light that comes from distant objects.
Markoff said that information will go into helping the telescope function.
“The technology of [the] Roman [telescope] is advancing our ability to see back in the universe and to see out there, and so this is going to be an incredible amount of data and what people can learn from it,” Markoff said. “It’ll keep us busy for many, many years.”
Markoff said the telescope looks like a big coffee mug turned on its horizontal side.
“It’s going to be orbiting about a million miles away from Earth, and it will be looking away from the sun into a patch of sky,” Markoff said. “The idea is that it will be looking at infrared light coming from stars and galaxies.”
The $3.6 billion project is being funded by NASA and $700,000 will go to NCCU to hire an astrophysicist professor during the 2024-2025 school year. Those funds are also compensating the students and faculty working on the project.
The Nancy Grace Telescope — which is named after NASA’s first chief astronomer — is scheduled to launch in space in 2027.
