NASA’s new telescope will have a view 100 times bigger than Hubble’s (Not James Webb, new!)
Are we alone in the universe? What is dark energy? These are two of the biggest mysteries of our universe, and NASA’s new space telescope hopes to answer them both.
The US space agency announced yesterday (Feb. 18) that its Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST)—originally just a study—will move forward into project phase. WFIRST will have the same precision and power of the Hubble Space Telescope, but with a field of view 100 times greater. It can capture millions of galaxies in a single image. Try wrapping your head around that.
In a press release, NASA outlined WFIRST’s two main tasks: to answer “fundamental questions about the structure and evolution of the universe,” and to “expand our knowledge of planets beyond our solar system.”
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By investigating the former, NASA hopes to learn about a mysterious force in our universe called dark energy. For decades, scientists theorized that the universe—which had been expanding since the Big Bang—would eventually decelerate. In the 1990s, though, astronomers discovered that the expansion of the universe wasn’t slowing down at all—it was accelerating. Today, it’s believed that some unknown, “dark” type of energy is responsible for speeding up the universe’s expansion rate.
WFIRST will measure the distances of thousands of supernovae, which can help NASA map how the universe is expanding. It will also examine the positions and shapes of millions of galaxies in order to track nearby dark matter—the invisible matter that makes up most of the “stuff” in the universe.
more
http://qz.com/620446/nasas-new-telescope-will-have-a-view-100-times-bigger-than-hubbles-and-could-solve-key-mysteries-of-the-universe/
The more eyes the better….
= new reply since forum marked as read
Hubble was such a great step forward. This should be another.
...... will capture more extremely red shifted objects...thus further away.
As the light from receding objects red shifts it doesn't stop at visible light wave lengths, but continues on into infrared, UHF VHF....microwaves and radio waves..... well, duh....
Supposedly when things have shifted to a wavelength the size of the universe, they will, as far as we are concerned, disappear... or more accurately become undetectable.(by any means we know now)
I know....
I've been reading Krauss....
I love nasa and space exploration! Learning about the other 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% of our universe is something very worth while and wonderful. I hope we can see the first extrasolar ocean with this. 
