Seeing Our Universe in New Ways - the Infrared Sky Re-imagined

In recent decades, our ability to study the universe with telescopes detecting a range of wavelengths of light - enabled by placing them on mountain tops, on airplanes, on balloons, to rockets and satellites in orbit - has revealed a beautiful, mystifying, dynamic, and rather extraordinary place. Infrared light, in particular, penetrating deep into dark clouds, allows us to observe the birth of stars, measure the re-emission of the dust left behind by violent supernovae stellar deaths, and study the environments of gas and dust from which stars and planets form. Will these new observations bring us closer to learning how our universe works and where we come from?

Speaker: Kimberly Ennico Smith, NASA Ames Research Center