This New NASA Telescope is so Much Better Than Hubble

Since it was launched in low Earth orbit in 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope has been proving us with crucial information about space and time, and it even helped determine the rate of expansion of the universe. However, this brand new telescope developed by NASA hopes to blow Hubble out of the water, as it comes with a field of view 100 times larger than that of Hubble. Dubbed WFIRST (Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope), it can also block the glare of individual stars, which will help scientists determine the chemical makeup of other planets. Unfortunately, sources indicate that WFIRST won’t be launched until the mid-2020s, but this should come as no surprise considering its complexity.

The next big telescope launch that we can look forward to is that of the James Webb telescope, which will also feed crucial information about the Milky Way and the universe to thousands of astronomers from around the world. When WFIRST will finally end up in space, it will build on this information and will allow us to improve our overall understanding of the universe and its shape, not to mention the fact that it will support the research of dark matter and dark energy, both of which are still regarded as mysteries right now.