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Roman Is in Space: Webb's Diamond Planet & a Gamma-Ray Mystery Solved
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
NASA's Roman Space Telescope is en route to L2 after a clean Falcon Heavy launch — but three months of commissioning stand between liftoff and science. Webb meanwhile reveals a carbon-atmosphere diamond planet with no known formation model, and closes a 20-year gamma-ray burst mystery.
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
NASA's Roman Space Telescope is in space. It launched Sunday aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy from Kennedy Space Center, and it's now on a three-month journey to a point one million miles from Earth called L2.
The launch was clean. Solar panels deployed.
While Roman begins its journey, Webb has been delivering results that keep reshaping what we think we know about planetary science. The latest: a planet called PSR J2322-2650b, orbiting a neutron star every seven point eight hours at a distance of just one million miles.
Webb also contributed to closing a twenty-year-old mystery. A gamma-ray burst from two thousand and six, catalogued as GRB 061201, had an unknown host galaxy for two decades.
On the human spaceflight side, Crew-13's planned trip to the International Space Station is on hold. An oxidizer leak was found in the Crew Dragon Grace spacecraft during pre-launch processing.
The clearest watchpoints from here: Roman's three-month commissioning phase, where any instrument problem will define the mission's actual capability. The spectroscopic confirmation of GRB 061201's host galaxy, which will either close that case or reopen it.
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