The history of stars is written in the light

of the countless galaxies in which they reside.

Staring long enough, at even a small patch 

of sky like Hubble’s Ultra Deep Field,

will reveal thousands of distant galaxies.

But the image of a galaxy 

tells only part of the story.

By spreading the galaxy’s light out into a spectrum,

astronomers can learn about the ages of its stars,

its star formation history, and more.

The best way to get the whole story would be to reveal

the spectra of every galaxy in an image, all at once.

NASA’s Roman Space Telescope has 

hardware designed to do just that.

Even better, its remarkably large field of view

can cover the area of a hundred Ultra Deep Fields

in a single observation.

Such a bounty of galaxy spectra will 

help astronomers discover hidden chapters

in the universe’s history of stars.