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NASA | WFIRST: Uncovering the Mysteries of the Universe

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The Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) is an up-coming space telescope designed to perform wide-field imaging and spectroscopy of the infrared sky. One of WFIRST's objectives missions will be looking for clues about dark energy--the mysterious force that is accelerating the expansion of the universe. Another objective of the mission will be finding and studying exoplanets.

WFIRST uses the same 2.4 meter telescope size as Hubble 2.4 meter telescope as Hubble, but with 18 cutting-edge fourth-generation image sensors compared toto Hubble's singleone first generation sensor sensor. As a result, each WFIRST image will cover over 200 times as much sky as a Hubble image and be 300 megapixels in size. Hubble images canould reveal thousands of galaxies while; single WFIRST images will uncover millions of galaxies.

To help uncover the mystery of dark energy, WFIRST will make incredibly precise measurements of the universe. These measurements, like the distance and position of galaxies, can be compared to other measurements—such as the cosmic microwave background from the WMAP mission—to determine how dark energy has changed over time. WMAP can also measure the slight distortions in light from distant galaxies as it passes more nearby mass concentrations. This data, along with WFIRST measurements,ese distortions will build a three dimensional picture of how mass is distributed throughout the universe, and provide independent confirmation of its structure.

Because WFIRST has such a large and sensitive field of view, it can find hundreds of new exoplanets through a process called microlensing., This technique is illustrated where the gravity of the planet acts as a lens and increases the apparent brightness of its host star as is passes between the star and the Earth. For closer planets, WFIRST will open a new era of direct observation. Currently only a handful of planets are observable in light reflected off of them, and they are all large planets close to their stars. WFIRST will be able to resolve planets as small as Neptune, and as far from their stars as Saturn is from the sun. This is possible thanks to newly developed coronagraphs, which block the bright light from the star to make the planet more visible.

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