Scientific American-Today in Science

"Spy satellite turned dark energy telescope."

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Russ Roberts (https://hawaiisciencemonitor.blogspot.com).

August 24, 2026—NASA's latest telescope has a wild origin story. Plus, the world's oceans hit 21 degrees C. And no matter how much some people want Pluto to be a planet again, it's just not.  —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor TODAY'S NEWS NASA Yesterday marked the anniversary of the first time Earth was photographed from the vicinity of the moon. The picture was taken on August 23, 1966, by NASA’s Lunar Orbiter 1, the first U.S. spacecraft to ever orbit the moon. | 2 min read The world’s oceans hit 21.10 degrees Celsius last Saturday, breaking a record set in 2024. And things are only going to get hotter. | 2 min read China was set to launch its ambitious Chang’e 7 mission early this morning. But the launch was scrapped (likely due to weather) and will be delayed until at least 2027. | 2 min read  Trauma can distort how memories are stored and retrieved in the brain. | 5 min read Lightning creates energy that, when it reaches the ground, is converted into seismic energy. Scientists can use such "thunderquakes" to map the structure beneath the Earth’s subsurface. | 4 min read  EXPERT PERSPECTIVES It's been 20 years since Pluto was declassified as a planet. And yet some people would like to see the cosmic body restored to its former planet glory. Those wishes are driven more by nostalgia than science, writes Mike Brown, one of the astronomers whose work contributed to demoting Pluto as the ninth planet in our solar system. "Nostalgia is not a particularly strong argument in a scientific discussion, so it has to be hidden behind something that sounds dispassionate and scientific, such as a newly minted geophysical definition," he writes. "If Pluto is to be a planet, then the moon—and many others—must be planets, too. Such is the price of your nostalgia."  Join the discussion: Should Pluto be reclassified as a planet? What do you think? Share your thoughts here. TOP STORIES The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is prepared for launch in a clean room at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. NASA/Chris Gunn New Eyes on Dark Matter NASA’s next big space observatory is the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. It’s currently sitting in Florida, ready to launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket within weeks. Nancy Grace Roman was NASA’s first chief of astronomy and a key voice in driving support for space telescopes, particularly the Hubble telescope, earning her the nickname “Mother of Hubble.” Her namesake observatory will be devoted to solving the mystery of dark matter and dark energy.​ ​ A surprising origin story: In the 1990s the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) launched a spy satellite project called Future Imagery Architecture. After the September 11, 2001, attacks, the agency doubled down on the program, aiming to build a new era of high-tech telescopes to gather satellite data on America’s adversaries. Officials decided to scrap the plan in 2005—but not before some of its hardware had already been constructed (and billions of dollars spent). Would NASA like any of the spare telescopes, NRO officials asked? The space agency jumped at the offer. Ultimately it would take more than a decade to transform the telescope from a spy satellite into a space observatory, with a final cost of about $4.3 billion. ​ The mission: In five years of observing, Roman will survey about 12 percent of the sky and image billions of galaxies. The telescope will also search for thousands of type Ia supernovae stretching back more than 10 billion years in the 13.8-billion-year history of the universe. Measurements of those explosions should help astronomers track how all the mass in the universe is changing. Another of the telescope’s surveys will peer into the center of the Milky Way, the galactic bulge, which contains a very dense population of stars, and look for the gravitational tug of planets bending the light of more distant stars. It should be able to spot worlds with as little mass as Earth’s moon. The telescope will also observe the galactic bulge for any dips in light from orbiting planets, called transits. ​ How it works: The NRO’s extra scope has a 2.4-meter primary mirror, the same size as the Hubble telescope. It will enable the Roman telescope to visualize billions of galaxies and thousands of supernovae to track how the spread of matter in the universe has changed.​ Matt Twombly ​The telescope’s main scientific instrument is a 300-megapixel infrared camera, which will capture detailed images of larger fields of view than Hubble can.​ Matt Twombly Using a complex array of masks, a deformable mirror and a sensitive camera, Roman will filter out the light of the stars to reveal the relatively dim shine of exoplanets around them. Matt Twombly

MONDAY MATH PUZZLE ​Using 13 matchsticks, you can form the image of a dog walking to the left with its tail raised. Is it possible to move just two matchsticks so that the dog ends up facing to the right? The task would be easy to solve if the dog were allowed to keep its tail lowered after the matchsticks were moved. But that is not permitted. This puzzle appeared in last week's edition of our math newsletter Proof Positive. To see the solution, sign up to receive tomorrow's Proof Positive  directly to your inbox. WHAT WE'RE READING Children require far less data to learn language than large language models do. Could this difference help scientists develop more efficient AI? | MIT Technology Review ($) Australia has just 12,000 sea lions left. And bird flu might devastate the remaining individuals. | The Guardian More than 300 people died of Ebola in eastern Congo in the past week, one of the highest weekly tolls yet. | ABC News Nancy Grace Roman spent her career furthering the pursuit of space-based astronomy. After she retired from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in 1997, she continued to work, teaching advanced junior high and high school students and teachers and giving public talks in senior centers, universities and churches. In 2016, at age 91, she gave 13 talks on topics such as the big bang, space discoveries, and the night sky, she told UChicago magazine. "I like to talk to children about the advantages of going into science and particularly to tell the girls, by showing them my life, that they can be scientists and succeed.” I can’t think of a more fitting name for a cutting-edge telescope that will help astronomers answer some of their deepest questions about the universe—and inspire the next generation to look up and wonder. Welcome to a new week of discovery. Reach out anytime with comments and questions: newsletters@sciam.com. See you tomorrow!   —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor

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