Pitt professors are showing students that they can reach for the stars with the launch of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.<\/p>\n
On Aug. 30, NASA<\/a> launched Roman<\/a>, a satellite that researchers at Pitt have worked on for years. Michael Wood-Vasey, Jeffrey Newman and Brett Andrews were among the Pitt professors who contributed to the project.\u00a0<\/p>\n Roman, which is named after the pioneer<\/a> of modern space-based astronomy, is approved for a five-plus-year mission. Wood-Vasey, a professor of physics and astronomy and director of undergraduate studies, explained how the origins of the NASA project can be traced back to nearly 30 years ago<\/a> when astronomers discovered that the rate the universe is expanding<\/a> is accelerating.<\/p>\n \u201cGravity is attractive, so that should slow [the expansion] down,\u201d Wood-Vasey said. \u201cThe conclusion you would have is there\u2019s some source of energy we don\u2019t know about.\u201d<\/p>\n Experts do not know why the universe is expanding more rapidly, but the mysterious force causing it is called dark energy<\/a>, according to Wood-Vasey.\u00a0<\/p>\n Roman will help answer questions about dark energy by capturing images of galaxies, supernovae<\/a> and exoplanets, which are planets outside of the solar system, to discover how they change over time. A phenomenon called gravitational lensing<\/a> occurs when dark matter<\/a> bends the path of light, which affects the perceived image of nearby galaxies, according to Wood-Vasey.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you look at the shapes of background galaxies, they\u2019ll be influenced by the mass of galaxies between [the background galaxies and the lens] \u2014\u00a0but also the dark matter structure in which the galaxies are embedded,\u201d Wood-Vasey said. \u201cThat will slightly warp and change the light.\u201d<\/p>\n Roman has the capacity to study weak lensing, or gravitational lensing, on a smaller scale. Wood-Vasey said this will help astronomers map galaxies and track expansion more precisely.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIf you look at those patterns as the universe has been expanding, you can trace out the structure of the dark matter during that time,\u201d Wood-Vasey said. \u201cThen, you can trace out the expansion as dominated by the interplay between dark energy and dark matter.\u201d<\/p>\n Roman\u2019s mission is similar to that of the Hubble Space Telescope<\/a>, but its field of view is at least 100 times larger<\/a> than Hubble\u2019s, capturing more detail in less time.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIf you want to do either that weak lensing survey, or even just want to find lots of supernovae and go really deep, having this image totally changes [the process],\u201d Wood-Vasey said. \u201cWe\u2019ve done both of these things with Hubble. This could do it a hundred times faster.\u201d<\/p>\n Marina Skuban, a fifth-year senior majoring in physics and astronomy and film and media studies, has been discussing the Roman telescope for several years as a part of the Survey of Transiting Extrasolar Planets<\/a> team at Pitt.<\/p>\n \u201cSince they announced the Roman telescope, it\u2019s been a big thing for the exoplanet research community,\u201d Skuban said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be one of our first real chances to get direct imaging of exoplanet systems.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Skuban, the Roman Coronagraph<\/a>, an instrument made up of masks, prisms, detectors and mirrors, is going to make it easier to see exoplanets in detail.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s going to block out light from these exoplanet systems from their host star, which is going to make it really easy for us to see what the planets look like in that system,\u201d Skuban said.<\/p>\n Skuban worked with Wood-Vasey through STEPUP and said being a student at Pitt has given her opportunities that she might not have had at another university.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a student, and especially with Pitt being an R1 university<\/a>, it opens up a world of possibilities,\u201d Skuban said. \u201cThe research that\u2019s available to us is limited by what your professors are doing at a certain time, and at Pitt, we\u2019re really lucky to have professors who are really involved in these big projects.\u201d<\/p>\n Rachel Hall, a senior mechanical engineering major, was invited to attend the Roman launch with leadership staff at the Moonshot Museum<\/a> in Pittsburgh after volunteering at a National Society for Black Engineers<\/a> event.<\/p>\n \u201cBeing able to attend the launch in person and witness the effort of every scientist and engineer that worked on the telescope pay off is something I\u2019ll remember forever,\u201d Hall said. \u201cSeeing the vast size of the rocket and how much detail goes into designing a machine like that was mind-blowing.\u201d<\/p>\n Hall said the idea of contributing to space exploration feels more attainable because of the ties in the Pitt community.<\/p>\n \u201cThe thought of working in the space industry used to feel like a far-off goal that was unobtainable, but knowing we have professors that are actively working alongside NASA makes that goal feel much more real,\u201d Hall said. \u201cWe need professors working in the industry to show students what\u2019s possible.\u201d<\/p>\n Wood-Vasey emphasized the importance of Roman beyond its mission and hopes it makes people think about their place in the universe.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe idea of science, the idea of sharing the data, of sharing the questions and sharing what we learn, I think is part of why we\u2019re here,\u201d Wood-Vasey said. \u201cIt\u2019s your questions that move things forward as much as the answers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pitt professors are showing students that they can reach for the stars with the launch of the Nancy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":281519,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":["post-281518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}