NASA's Roman mission will test competing cosmic acceleration theories

A team of scientists has predicted the science return from one of NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope's surveys, which will analyze millions of galaxies strewn across space and time. The best chance yet to discern between the leading theories about what is speeding up the universe will be provided by the mission's enormous, deep panoramas.

Roman will use a variety of methods, including the study of the color information in light. Scientists will be able to measure how fast the universe expanded in different eras and how it has evolved.

The lead author of the study said that the study forecasts the science Roman's survey will enable and show how various adjustments could improve its design. The Roman Science Support Center will be responsible for the mission's data processing, while the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore will be responsible for the data processing. It will help us understand the first generation of galaxies, allow us to map dark matter, and even reveal information about structures that are much closer to home.

The Roman Space Telescope will allow scientists to study the mysteries of the universe in a new way. Statistical studies that are not practical using telescopes with narrower views will be enabled by the precise measurements contained in each image.

Roman's survey will cover 2% of the sky in seven months. The survey should reveal precise distances for 10 million galaxies from when the universe was between 3-6 billion years old, since light that reaches the telescope began its journey when the universe was much younger. Astronomers will be able to map the large-scale structure of the universe. The survey will show the distances for 2 million galaxies that were not explored in the large-scale structure of the universe.

The rainbow is being read.

Light is the most important source of information we receive from space. Roman will study light by breaking it down into individual colors. The information about the object that emits the light is revealed by the detailed wavelength patterns. Astronomers call this phenomenon redshift because when an object moves, all of the light waves we receive are stretched out and shifted to redder wavelength.

In the 1920s, astronomer Georges Lema and astronomer Edwin Hubble used redshifts to show that our universe is moving at different speeds. Astronomers can find out how far away a galaxy is by determining how quickly it is moving away from us.

Roman will use his survey to create a 3D map of the universe. Learning how the distribution of the universe varies with distance and time will allow us to see how quickly the universe expanded.

The echoes of sound waves from the Bigbang will be connected by this study. Due to the expansion of space, the baryon acoustic oscillations have grown and left their mark on the universe. We are more likely to find another galaxy 500 million light-years away than we are to find one slightly closer.

The vestige of BAO ripples decreases when you look farther out into the universe. This gives a measurement of the universe's expansion history. Astronomers use redshift space distortions to trace the growth history of large-scale structure because of the gravity of their neighbors. Understanding the structure of the universe over time will allow scientists to explore Einstein's theory of gravity over the age of the universe.

There is dark energy and modified gravity.

The gravity of the matter within the universe should slow the expansion. Astronomers were surprised to learn that the expansion of the universe is speeding up because it means that something about our picture of the universe is either wrong or incomplete. Adding a new energy component to the universe could be the explanation for the mystery.

Changing the equations that describe gravity has been done before. The law of gravity couldn't explain a small but mysterious motion in Mercury's elliptical path.

Einstein's general theory of relativity perfectly accounted for the problems that surfaced, like Mercury's orbital shift. Modern physics is being changed by changing the way we view space and time.

Cosmic acceleration could be a sign that Einstein's theory of gravity is not quite right. General relativity is tested on physical scales about the size of our solar system, but less so as we move to larger scales. One of the best opportunities to discern between the leading theories that attempt to explain cosmic acceleration will be provided by the enormous, deep 3D images of the universe.

We can either look forward to new physics or we can modify Einstein's theory of gravity.

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is managed at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, with participation by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech/IPAC in Southern California, the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, and a science team. Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corporation in Boulder, Colorado is one of the primary industrial partners.

More information: Yun Wang et al, The High Latitude Spectroscopic Survey on the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, The Astrophysical Journal (2022). DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ac4973 Journal information: Astrophysical Journal Citation: NASA's Roman mission will test competing cosmic acceleration theories (2022, March 22) retrieved 22 March 2022 from https://phys.org/news/2022-03-nasa-roman-mission-cosmic-theories.html This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.