Enormous new NASA telescope expected to find 100,000 new worlds including ‘Super-Earths’

The beast sized telescope forms part of NASA’s next generation space telescopes that will deepen understanding of space.

The telescope is expected to launch in the mid-2020s and could discover Super-Earths, which are a little larger and more massive than the human planet, and mini-Neptunes, which are four to eight times smaller than Earth, according to EarthSky.

Other types of planets that could be discovered include gas giants that are similar to Jupiter and Saturn and humongous ice world planets like Uranus.

The new telescope will use microlensing to discover the new planets which monitor how light is effected by massive objects.

Using the technique astronomers can work out whether planets are orbiting stars in space.

The Roman will also use the traditional transit method which is when a planet passes between a star and its observer.

According to NASA: “Transits reveal an exoplanet not because we directly see it from many light-years away, but because the planet passing in front of its star ever so slightly dims its light.”