Pick up to 4 telescopes to compare side-by-side. State lives in the URL — share the link and the comparison loads exactly as you left it.
Space telescope data has underpinned 1.5 million+ scientific papers since 1990.
| Attribute | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Agency | NASA | NASA | NASA |
| Status | In Development | Retired | Retired |
| Wavelength band | infrared | infrared | optical |
| Launch year | 2027 | 2003 – 2020 | 2009 – 2018 |
| Orbit | Sun-Earth L2 point | Earth-trailing heliocentric orbit | Earth-trailing heliocentric orbit |
| Mirror / aperture | 2.4 mas of [1]Same aperture as Hubble but 100× wider field of view ↑ Largest | 0.85 mas of [1] | 1.4 mas of [1] |
| Mass | ~4,200 kgas of [1]Estimated; uses repurposed NRO mirror donated to NASA ↑ Heaviest | 950 kgas of [1] | 1,052 kgas of [1] |
| Wavelength range | 0.48–2.3 μm (optical + NIR) | 3.6–160 μm (mid-to-far infrared) | 0.43–0.89 μm (optical) |
| Key missions |
|
|
|
| Summary | NASA's next flagship astronomy mission. Roman's 300-megapixel Wide Field Instrument (WFI) has Hubble-equivalent resolution but covers 0.28 square degrees per pointing — 100× wider than Hubble. Its 5-year primary mission will census dark matter, dark energy, and exoplanet populations across the Milky Way. | NASA's infrared Great Observatory, operating 2003–2020. Best known for discovering the TRAPPIST-1 system of 7 Earth-sized planets, including 3 in the habitable zone (with ground telescopes). Ran out of cryogen in 2009 but continued 'warm mission' until retirement in January 2020. | The mission that proved planets are abundant throughout the galaxy. Kepler monitored 150,000+ stars continuously for 4 years, finding that most stars host planets. A reaction wheel failure in 2013 ended the primary mission; the repurposed K2 mission (2014–2018) found 1,000+ additional planets before fuel ran out. |
All 9 major space telescopes with primary-source citations from NASA, ESA, STScI, and JPL. Pure URL state — bookmark or share the link and the comparison reproduces exactly.