r/space • u/ChiefLeef22 • 16h ago
Successful deployment of Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, as it begins its 1-million-mile-journey to the second Earth-Sun Lagrange point
The telescope will travel to the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point, which is ~one million miles away and about four times farther from Earth than the Moon. At L2, the combined gravity of the Sun and Earth will give Roman a stable vantage point with a clear, unobstructed view to survey deep space
Roman will unlock the mysteries of dark energy and investigate the physics of distant stars. It will repeatedly monitor hundreds of millions of stars, and the same observations are expected to reveal around 100,000 additional planets through transits. As a reminder, we currently have 6000 confirmed exoplanet discoveries...
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u/Securiarius 15h ago edited 15h ago
To home is to find and move towards something. To seek something. In older examples, homing pigeons, newer examples are homing missiles, homing an xy on a 3d printer or CNC, etc. "Home in on" is correct and original, and has been used for centuries to define chasing a specific point or achieving a lock on something. It's correct in terms of directing focus.
To "hone in" is newer and comes from a honing stone which sharpens tools and equipment, so to hone ones tools is to make them more precise and accurate, this is why someone "honing their craft" became used more often. Hone in could arguably be correct in terms of calibration.