Open Access Presentation
10 July 2018 Future Science with the James Webb Space Telescope (Conference Presentation)
Author Affiliations +
Abstract
Planned for launch in 2019 on an Ariane 5 from French Guiana, JWST will observe at wavelengths from 0.6 to 28 µm with a full suite of imagers, spectrometers, and coronagraphs. JWST will extend the discoveries of the Hubble and Spitzer observatories in all areas from cosmology, galaxies, stars, and exoplanets to our own Solar System. With a 6.5 m primary mirror it has a collecting area 7 times that of Hubble and 50 times that of Spitzer. The image quality is diffraction limited at 2 µm with near IR camera pixels of only 0.03 arcsec. I will outline the planned observing program, showing how the instrument capabilities enable new discoveries in new territories. What were the first objects that formed in the expanding universe? How do the galaxies grow? How are black holes made, ranging from stellar mass to supermassive, over a billion solar masses, and what is their effect on the neighborhood? How are stars and planetary system formed? What governs the evolution of planetary systems, with the possibility of life? How did the Earth become so special? But the most important discoveries will be those we have not even imagined today.
Conference Presentation
© (2018) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
John C. Mather "Future Science with the James Webb Space Telescope (Conference Presentation)", Proc. SPIE 10698, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2018: Optical, Infrared, and Millimeter Wave, 106986Y (10 July 2018); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2506185
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