JWST: The Telescope That Changed How We See the Universe with Richard Panek [Ep. 477]

Into the Impossible With Brian Keating

Brian Keating

Science, Physics, Natural Sciences

4.7 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 2 February 2025

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Please join my mailing list here 👉 https://briankeating.com/list to win a meteorite 💥 The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has been making headlines since its announcement. But what makes the telescope so special? How do astronomers create the captivating images we see online? And is the $10 billion gamble actually paying off? Here today to invite us into the intricacies of the controversial telescope is none other than Richard Panek, an award-winning science writer who specializes in astronomy and telescopes. Panek is known for making complex scientific concepts accessible to general audiences by blending them with his excellent storytelling. In his latest book, Pillars of Creation, he tackled the JWST and detailed its story from the very beginning. Join us as we dive into the telescope’s groundbreaking design, the controversies surrounding it, the remarkable discoveries it has already made, the science behind the stunning images we see, and what the future of astronomy looks like. — Key Takeaways: 00:00 Intro 00:29 Panic! at the Discs 02:13 Hubble vs. Webb 05:05 Judging a book by its cover 09:26 The discovery of dimethyl sulfide on Kepler K2-18b 11:27 Exoplanet detection and scientific goals 13:33 Historical rhymes in astronomy 16:56 The process and costs of running JWST 21:21 Controversy around naming JWST 28:25 How JWST images are made 37:43 Margin beyond the margin of error 40:11 Assigning colors to infrared images 43:26 The future of NASA’s giant observatories 45:08 The 4-Percent Universe and what’s next for Richard 48:33 Outro — Additional resources: ➡️ Learn more about Richard Panek: 📱 Website: https://www.richardpanek.net/ 📚 Pillars of Creation: https://a.co/d/d86haI5 📚 The 4-Percent Universe: https://a.co/d/hBlWtol ➡️ Follow me on your fav platforms: ✖️ Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrBrianKeating 🔔 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/DrBrianKeating?sub_confirmation=1 📝 Join my mailing list: https://briankeating.com/list ✍️ Check out my blog: https://briankeating.com/cosmic-musings/ 🎙️ Follow my podcast: https://briankeating.com/podcast — Into the Impossible with Brian Keating is a podcast dedicated to all those who want to explore the universe within and beyond the known. Make sure to follow/subscribe so you never miss an episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I've gone back and I looked at some of the headlines from that period,
0:03.2	and there were things like JWST has broken cosmology.
0:06.9	It's broken the universe.
0:08.2	Broken was used a lot.
0:09.6	After everything died down, I thought that wasn't breakage.
0:12.0	That was science.
0:13.1	Richard Panic.
0:14.2	So great to see you again.
0:15.4	Three years after our last conversation.
0:18.1	And three years exactly since the James Webb Space Telescope was launched,
0:21.9	recording on Christmas Eve, 24. How are you?
0:26.4	Very well. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Good to see you again.
0:29.4	I want to take us back to two years ago when a paper came out called Panic, P-A-N-I-C, not P-A-N-E-K, panic at the disks,
0:42.4	it was a suggestion that galaxies of a disk variety formed extremely early in the universe,
0:49.1	much earlier than thought, and it was all thanks to the so-called James Webb Deepfield image. This set off a controversy,
0:56.1	which led to many things, including many papers that claim that the Big Bang never happened.
1:00.8	What was that story like? How did it resolve itself? Is it resolved to this day? Did the Big Bang
1:05.9	happen, Richard? Oh, yeah. I was there. It was something. One of the things about the James Watt
1:12.5	Telescope, or JWST, is that they wanted to test their theories about the early universe.
1:20.9	By they, I mean, people like you. I wanted to figure out whether they were getting
1:25.0	the early universe right.
1:31.1	And so the fact that there were these anomalies, like right out of the gate,
	...

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