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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA’s newest crown jewel blasted off Sunday to hunt for planets around other stars, explore secret dark energy and survey the cosmos like never before.
SpaceX launched the $4.3 billion Roman Space Telescope shortly after daybreak aboard a triple-the-firepower Falcon Heavy rocket. Roman blazed toward an observation point 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) away that’s home to the Webb Space Telescope, one of NASA’s other big-ticket eyes in the sky.
The bus-sized telescope — named after the late Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first chief astronomer — will take more than three months to reach its destination. Once there, it will cast the widest gaze yet on the hidden parts of the universe.