The Nancy Grace Roman space telescope has started its journey into deep space. The telescope was launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida by the United States space agency NASA. It is travelling about one million miles from Earth to search for exoplanets, which are planets outside our solar system, and to help scientists learn how planets form. This new telescope cost $4.3bn and survived cuts to the budget by the White House before its launch.

The Roman telescope was created because scientists discovered our universe is not just expanding, but it is expanding faster and faster. NASA scientists decided a new and more powerful telescope is needed to study this, as well as to find and photograph more planets far from Earth.

Now, the Roman telescope will join other famous NASA telescopes in space, such as Hubble and James Webb. It has a special camera that covers a much larger area than before. NASA expects to receive images starting in 2027, which will be shared with scientists and the public.