Planetary Observations with the James Webb Space Telescope

The James Webb Space Telescope is the next in the line of NASA's Great Observatories, a scientific successor to both the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes. This space observatory will see the first galaxies to form in the universe, and explore how stars are born and give rise to planetary systems. It will study exoplanets, investigating their potential for life. JWST is optimized to detect infrared light, using a segmeted mirror more than 6 m in diameter and operating a million miles away in the cold, dark environment of Earth's Lagrange 2 point. It will carry four science instruments covering wavelengths from 0.6 to 28 microns. In this talk, Dr. Heidi B. Hammel (JWST Interdisciplinary Scientist) will review JWST's scientific objectives, its hardware and technology development, and the predicted system performance. She will also provide an overview of the review of JWST that was commissioned by Congress, and discuss the current status of the project.

Speaker: Heidi B. Hammel, Space Science Institute