On August 30th at 11.26 Universal Time, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope—NASA’s newest eye in the sky—took off(起飞；发射) from the Kennedy Space Centre, in Florida, aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. The telescope, named after(以……命名) NASA’s first chief astronomer, is now heading for a parking spot in orbit around 1.6m kilometres from Earth. From there, it will provide astronomers with an unprecedented(前所未有的) view of the universe.
8月30日11点26分（世界时），南希·格蕾丝·罗曼太空望远镜——NASA最新的太空之眼——搭乘SpaceX猎鹰重型火箭从佛罗里达州肯尼迪航天中心升空。这台以NASA首位首席天文学家命名的望远镜，正前往距地球约160万公里的轨道停车位。在那里，它将为天文学家提供前所未有的宇宙视野。
Two particular gadgets(小装置；设备) will assist in this. One is the Wide Field Instrument (WFI), a 300-megapixel camera that will snap(拍摄（快照）) pictures in both visible light and infrared. It will thus be able to see distant galaxies whose light has been stretched(拉伸；延伸) to infrared wavelengths by the expanding universe. And, as its name suggests(正如其名所示), the WFI’s field of view is huge—over 100 times larger than the camera of its original predecessor(前任；前身), the Hubble Space Telescope.
两个特殊设备将为此提供帮助。其一是广域仪器（WFI），一台300万像素的相机，能以可见光和红外线拍摄图像。因此，它将能观测到遥远星系——这些星系的光因宇宙膨胀而被拉伸至红外波长。而且，正如其名所示，WFI的视野巨大——比其前身哈勃太空望远镜的相机大100多倍。
Paradoxically(矛盾的是), two of the WFI’s targets will not appear in any of its photos. At least not directly. They are dark matter and dark energy(暗物质和暗能量)—a pair of mysterious phenomena(现象（复数）) that reveal themselves only through the ways in which they bend and stretch the fabric of spacetime(时空结构). Astronomers know they are there, but not what they actually are (though, as the previous story outlines, a particle of dark matter may just have been detected). They will therefore use the WFI’s souped-up optics to search for clues by tracking how these cosmic oddities have influenced the universe’s other matter over the course of its history.(因此，他们将利用WFI增强的光学系统，通过追踪这些宇宙怪胎在历史进程中如何影响其他物质来寻找线索。)
矛盾的是，WFI的两个目标不会出现在它的任何照片中，至少不会直接出现。它们就是暗物质和暗能量——一对神秘现象，只能通过它们弯曲和拉伸时空结构的方式显露自身。天文学家知道它们存在，但不知道它们究竟是什么（尽管正如前文所述，暗物质粒子可能刚刚被探测到）。因此，他们将利用WFI增强版的光学系统，通过追踪这些宇宙怪胎在宇宙历史进程中如何影响其他物质来寻找线索。