Humanity had its first glimpse into a new era of space exploration on July 11th and 12th, when the first scientific images were released from the James Webb Space Telescope, the most complex telescope ever built and the largest ever to be sent into space. Webb revealed to us the Southern Ring Nebula, a giant star at the end of its life in a glowing shell of hot matter. We witnessed four of the galaxies in Stephan’s Quintet engaged in an astronomically slow collision. We saw unprecedented detail of newborn stars emitting light and immersed in dust in the Carina Nebula. And Webb’s deep field image penetrated through the cosmic space dust that had obscured Hubble’s view to reveal even more galaxies, planets, and stars than previously imagined. This first suite of scientific images hints at a treasure of discoveries to come, discoveries that provoke us to contemplate humanity’s place in a vast and evolving universe.
In this new epic iteration of Scientific Controversies, Pioneer Works Director of Sciences, Professor Janna Levin, invites NASA’s Senior Project Scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope, Nobel Laureate John Mather, and renowned observational astronomer Wendy Freedman to discuss Webb’s very first glimpse of the universe and this new era in astronomy.
This project is supported by Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation initiative dedicated to engaging everyone with the process of science, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Program in Public Understanding of Science and Technology, bridging the two cultures of science and the arts.
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