Adler Planetarium celebrates launch of Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope

The Adler Planetarium celebrated the launch Sunday of NASA's $4.3 billion Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.

The telescope was launched atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket Sunday, kicking off a three-month voyage to a point in space a million miles from Earth where it will map the large-scale structure of the cosmos with a wide-field 300-megapixel camera.

The field of view for the Roman Telescope is 100 times larger than that of the Hubble Telescope.

Using a Hubble-class mirror originally built for a spy satellite, Roman will search for clues about the nature of repulsive dark energy, which is accelerating the expansion of the universe, along with probing the distribution of equally mysterious dark matter, which holds galaxies together and accounts for most of its mass.

A second instrument, an experimental coronagraph with shape-shifting mirrors that can dim the glare of distant suns, will allow astronomers to analyze the light reflected from vastly dimmer Jupiter-size planets to tease out details about their chemical makeup.

At the same time, Roman's wide-field camera will look for stars that periodically dim as planets pass in front as viewed from the telescope.

Until 3 p.m. Sunday, the Adler Planetarium is celebrating the launch of the telescope — inviting visitors to chat with experts and learn about how it all works.

Activities at the planetarium for the occasion include:

• Exploring Infrared, where visitors can see themselves in infrared light using a special camera, and can explore a form of light our eyes can't detect.
• Color and Light, where visitors can use markers to create hidden patterns, and use special filters to explore images in space.
• Stomp Rockets, where you can assemble a paper rocket and launch it high into the air.
• How Telescopes Work, where you can arrange lenses and mirrors and use lasers to explore the functions of telescopes.
• Expert Encounter, where a visitor can chat with an expert about the Roman Space Telescope. This is available from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Meanwhile, two Adler scientists — senior director of astronomy Geza Gyuk and public observing educator Hunter Miller — were invited to watch the telescope launch at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Sunday.

NASA expects to capture and release the first images from Roman toward the end of the year.