The James Webb Space Telescope: Great science will be launching soon! - Livestream

The James Webb Space Telescope will be the most powerful and complex astronomical space observatory ever built. It will launch in December and will unfold itself before arriving in its final orbit in the Sun - Earth system about a month later. The large 6.5-m diameter JWST primary mirror and its infrared instruments will allow it to see some of the very first luminous objects that formed in the Universe shortly after the Big Bang. Other major science themes of JWST encompass studying the assembly of galaxies, the birth of stars and planetary systems, and planetary systems and the origins of life. JWST will be the premier astrophysics space observatory for NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) over its 5 - 10 year mission lifetime. It will augment the Hubble Space Telescope, which primarily works at visible and ultraviolet light wavelengths. In addition to the topics covered in this talk, many scientists will use JWST to make discoveries that we have not yet imagined.

JWST employs many unique technologies, and the mission has been in development for 20 years. All major hardware components including the telescope, spacecraft, and all science instruments have been completed, and a significant amount of this work was done in the Bay Area and California. The completed integrated observatory will be launched from the ESA spaceport in French Guiana, and scientists from all over the world will use it. In this talk I will illustrate the mission's science potential and highlight some aspects of its technologies, launch, and operations plans.

Speaker: Dr. Thomas Green, NASA Ames Research Center