Seeing farther out in space and back in time with the James Webb Space Telescope

  • Physics and Astronomy Colloquium

January 26, 2024 3:30 PM
PAIS 1100

Host:
Tony Hull
Presenter:
Dr. John Mather (NASA)
Video Recording
The JWST, launched Christmas morning of 2021, is an engineering marvel, with a golden hexagonal mirror 6.5 across. It observes light from 0.6 to 28 µm with the world’s most sensitive IR detectors, in order to see the first objects after the Big Bang, the growth of galaxies and black holes, the formation of stars and planets, and the atmospheres of large exoplanets. I’ll talk about how we know about the expanding universe, how we built the JWST, what we saw, and plans for the next great telescopes in space and on the ground. The images are already astounding, and there are many surprises in the data. For instance, the first galaxies are not round, and they’re brighter and hotter than expected. And this is not the end: many more telescopes, even more powerful, are being designed.

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