Note: Single-source report; awaiting corroboration.
The Milky Way’s galactic bulge, a dense region near its center, has been extensively studied by space-based telescopes such as NASA’s Hubble and James Webb. To support NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, a dedicated Hubble survey has targeted many of the same bulge regions Roman will observe in its core Galactic Bulge Time-Domain Survey.
The Roman Space Telescope is designed to cover more sky area at a faster pace than previous observatories, allowing it to survey millions of stars and identify thousands of new exoplanets. The survey will focus on detecting microlensing events—gravitational phenomena caused by rogue planets, isolated neutron stars, and black holes with solar-like masses.
Roman’s survey will feature six 72-day observing seasons, taking snapshots every 12 minutes over about 1.7 square degrees near the galactic center—roughly the area of 8.5 full moons. This will enable observation of various targets within the bulge.
By combining Hubble data collected months or years earlier with new Roman observations, astronomers will better interpret findings from Roman’s Galactic Bulge Time-Domain Survey. The Roman telescope launch is targeted for as early as September 2026.