KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. (WOWO) — NASA is preparing to launch its newest space telescope, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, as early as August 30 aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.

Named after Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first Chief of Astronomy, the telescope is designed to help scientists study some of the universe’s biggest mysteries, including dark energy, distant galaxies and planets beyond our solar system.

Roman’s Wide Field Instrument will use 18 detectors to capture massive, high-resolution images. NASA says a single 300-megapixel image would be so large that it would take about 37 4K Ultra HD screens tiled together to display it at its native resolution.

The telescope will also survey the center of the Milky Way, creating a detailed census of stars and planets. NASA estimates Roman could reveal around 100,000 new worlds during its mission.

Another instrument, the Coronagraph Instrument, will block much of the glare from nearby stars, allowing scientists to directly image large planets that would otherwise be difficult to see. NASA says the technology could help pave the way for future telescopes capable of finding smaller, Earth-like planets.

Roman will repeatedly photograph the same wide areas of space, creating high-resolution time-lapse views of the universe. Scientists will be able to observe changes and events such as stellar explosions and stars being disrupted by black holes.

The telescope is expected to generate about 1.4 terabytes of data every day, and NASA says the data will be made publicly available.

Roman is also expected to help scientists better understand dark energy, map the Milky Way and discover new galaxies and planets.

NASA says the telescope is currently scheduled to launch as early as August 30, about nine months ahead of its previous schedule.

For more information about the mission, visit NASA’s Roman Space Telescope mission page.