The James Webb Telescope Reveals the Edges of the Universe

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KQED

News, Politics, News Commentary

4.2 • 726 Ratings

🗓️ 14 July 2022

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A nursery of stars. Galaxies 13 billion light years away. The Carina Nebula. These are some of the spectacular images captured by the James Webb Telescope from its vantage point one million miles away from earth. As the telescope’s detail-saturated pictures were beamed across the world on Tuesday, they were met with awed silence as well as whoops of joy from scientists, some whose entire careers have been dedicated to the telescope. One of the most complicated spacecraft ever launched, the the telescope, which boasts a sun shield the size of a tennis court, will beam back images and data for the next 20 years. We’ll talk to scientists who helped design the James Webb Telescope and find out what we can expect to see next. Guests: Marcia Rieke, Regents' professor of Astronomy and astronomer, Steward Observatory, University of Arizona - Dr. Rieke is the principal investigator for the NIRCam on the James Webb Space Telescope. Tom Greene, astrophysicist, Space Science and Astrobiology Division at NASA Ames Research Center - Dr. Greene works on the NIRCam and MIRI science instruments on the James Webb Telescope. Marina Koren, staff writer, The Atlantic - Koren covers space for the magazine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:00.0	Support for Key QBD Podcasts comes from San Francisco International Airport. At SFO, you can shop,
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1:13.9	A million miles away from the Earth, the James Webb Space Telescope in engineering
1:18.8	marvel, 25 years in the making, has begun to image the universe.
1:23.1	From nearby exoplanets to the edges of the universe and everywhere in between, astronomy is about
1:28.9	to leap forward.
1:30.8	So far we've seen a nursery for stars, a deep view of hundreds of galaxies from across space
1:36.7	and time, and a measurement of the atmosphere of a planet 1150 light years away.
1:43.7	But this is just the beginning.
1:45.3	There will be more images and more discoveries.
1:48.1	We'll talk to the scientists who helps bring the telescope to life about what we've seen
1:51.9	and what to expect next.
1:53.7	That's all coming up.
1:58.1	Welcome to Forum.
1:59.3	I'm Alexis Madrigal.
2:04.9	Gotta forgive me, but I have to make this intro a little personal. 27 years ago, when NASA released an image that became known as the Pillars of Creation,
	...

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