ROMAN SPACE TELESCOPE TO DETECT DISTANT BLACK HOLES SHREDDING STARS

NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, scheduled to launch on 30 August 2026, will be capable of detecting supermassive black holes from up to 11 billion years ago, according to new research. The telescope will identify these distant black holes by observing tidal disruption events—moments when black holes shred and consume entire stars, causing them to brighten beyond their host galaxy's luminosity. A paper describing this capability was published in The Astrophysical Journal on Tuesday. Mitchell Karmen of Johns Hopkins University, lead author of the research, stated that Roman's high sensitivity will enable detection of multiple tidal disruption events at greater distances and earlier in cosmic history than previously possible.

Tidal disruption events occur uniquely in lighter supermassive black holes, typically ranging from 100,000 to 100 million times the sun's mass. Heavier black holes, exceeding 1 billion solar masses, consume stars whole without creating observable disruption signatures. When a lighter black hole shreds a star, the resulting brightness peaks over approximately two weeks before gradually fading. Roman's High-Latitude Time-Domain Survey, one of three core community surveys, will systematically revisit approximately 18 square degrees of sky—equivalent to 90 full moons—at regular intervals. This repeated observation pattern allows astronomers to identify transient events across the early universe.

Understanding the population of early supermassive black holes and their evolution across billions of years will provide insights into how these objects originate and develop, according to the research. Roman's observations will address fundamental questions about black hole formation and growth at the centres of galaxies. The mission represents a significant advancement in transient astronomy capabilities, as Karmen noted in the research documentation.