Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will reveal universe's future; NASA elaborates how

After decades worth of research, scientists came to know that the universe emerged after the big bang about 14 billion years ago and has been undergoing rapid expansion ever since. Given that we already know the past of the cosmos, NASA claims that its upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will also uncover its future. Expected to launch no earlier than 2025, this new telescope would team up with the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope to solve the dark energy puzzle in order to make unprecedented revelations.

What exactly is dark energy?

While there are a few possible explanations, scientists find it hard to define what exactly is dark energy. However, they do know that this dark energy might have something to do with the expansion of the universe. Scientists also know that dark energy is present all around us, in the room we are in and even inside our body. Theories suggest that dark energy is always acting on us but gets countered by the Earth's gravitational force which keeps us from flying out of our place. NASA says that dark energy is noticeable only on an intergalactic scale when it is acting as a weak opposition to gravity.

The fate of our universe

The Nancy Roman Grace Space Telescope is being prepared to observe the universe in infrared which would provide new clues regarding dark energy. "Discovering how dark energy has affected the universe’s expansion in the past will shed some light on how it will influence the expansion in the future. If it continues to accelerate the universe’s expansion, we may be destined to experience a "big rip", the agency said in a statement. It further states that studying dark energy is important as it might cause the galaxies, planets and people to break apart due to its eventual dominance over other fundamental forces of nature. 

Explaining how astronomers would study dark energy, NASA revealed that they would use the Roman telescope to survey Type Ia supernovae which occur when white dwarf stars explode. Scientists would then note the particular wavelengths of light emerging from the supernovae to find out how fast the dying stars are moving away from us. These distances would then be combined with measurements of their brightness to determine how dark energy has evolved over time.