The images of the Universe put at risk by proposed NASA cuts

No matter how poetically someone like Carl Sagan talked about space, the most famous representatives of astronomy aren't people. They’re images. 

Amazing pictures are how astronomy thrives in the public’s imagination, whether they’re taken from probes, like Voyager’s pale blue dot, or observatories, like the Hubble Space Telescope’s Pillars of Creation. These images confront us with the wonders of the Universe. They show us that while outer space can sound abstract, its beauty is very, very real. 

Now, the White House’s proposed NASA budget is putting the next generation of breathtaking, perspective-shifting images at risk. By threatening to slash NASA science by 47% and cancel over 40 space missions, this proposal would end spacecraft that are set to reveal the Universe in entirely new ways. 

The U.S. Congress has made it clear that it intends to largely reject these proposed cuts. As of the writing of this article, though, the situation remains in flux. No matter what happens to these missions, we will need to keep fighting for them.

If these cuts were to go into effect, what awe-inspiring pictures would we never see? 

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope could be the biggest leap in astronomical imaging at risk. As NASA’s next flagship orbital observatory, Roman would take images just as sharp as Hubble’s but capture 100 times more of the sky in a single shot. Roman also features a coronagraph — an instrument to block light from nearby stars and take pictures of planets orbiting around them — that is at least 100 times more powerful than any existing facility. Roman aims to take direct photos of thousands of exoplanets, including, perhaps, the first image of one with rings. But under the White House’s proposal, Roman’s budget would be slashed by 50%, endangering the telescope’s 2026-2027 target launch date and future operations. 

VERITAS, a Venus orbiter slated to launch around 2030, is also under threat. VERITAS would capture high-resolution views of the planet’s surface unlike anything seen before. The mission would give us maps of Venus about five times sharper than our current best images, which are now over 30 years old. 

The DAVINCI mission could provide even more breathtaking views. This probe would take photos as it descends toward the surface of Venus, showing us the first glimpse from within Venus’ clouds in nearly 50 years. It would eventually achieve a resolution of around 1 meter or less, similar to high-resolution satellite imagery of Earth. And though DAVINCI is not designed to survive impacting the ground, if it does, it could also send back images from Venus’ surface. 

In the White House’s proposed budget, both of these Venus missions would be cancelled entirely. Whatever images they would have taken would be lost forever. 

Then there’s the New Horizons spacecraft, an ongoing mission that could provide a fresh perspective on the Solar System much farther afield. If it is not shut down midflight as the White House has proposed, this mission could take the first images of an unexplored Kuiper Belt object. New Horizons could also turn around to take one final image of Earth — an updated version of the pale blue dot, seen from even farther away. 

Carl Sagan knew the importance of images when, in the 1980s, he advocated for Voyager to take the original pale blue dot picture. Now, the movement he co-founded is again fighting for images that show us our place in the Cosmos.