Hubble Survey Sets Up Roman’s Future Look Near Milky Way’s Center

This VISTA VVV Survey image shows the galactic bulge near Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the Milky Way’s center. A region planned for observation by NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is outlined. This area has been observed by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. Image: NASA, Alyssa Pagan (STScI); Acknowledgment: VISTA, Dante Minniti (UNAB), Ignacio Toledo (ALMA), Martin Kornmesser (ESO) The Milky Way’s galactic bulge , the bulbous region that surrounds the galactic center, contains a dense collection of stars, planets, and other free-floating objects. This region has been studied for decades with numerous ground-based and space-based telescopes, including NASA’s Hubble and James Webb space telescopes. Soon, NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will be the first to make studying the galactic bulge a part of its core science objectives, building on the data collected from all observatories before it. Roman’s field of view will cover more area at a far faster cadence than previous space telescopes, allowing it to survey millions of stars and find thousands of new exoplanets. To support Roman in characterizing numerous stars and planets, astronomers sought to use Hubble to observe many of the same areas of the galactic bulge that Roman will observe in its core Galactic Bulge Time-Domain Survey . By comparing Hubble data taken months or years earlier to new Roman data, astronomers will be better able to interpret Roman’s forthcoming observations. …