In-person

Past Event: Dr. Jane R. Rigby - Revealing the Cosmos: Exploring Deep Space with the Webb

Dr. Jane R. Rigby

This event has passed.

Linsly-Chittenden Hall Room 102, 63 High St, New Haven CT

Now in science operations, JWST is the most powerful telescope ever built. The quantitative science performance of JWST, measured commissioning, demonstrates that JWST is fully capable of achieving the discoveries for which it was built. Almost across the board, JWST's science performance is better than expected. I will attempt to characterize both the breadth and the depth of the JWST science program, and will dwell on the power of coupling JWST to cosmic telescopes, also known as gravitational lenses, which is my own research. I'll fold in a few human stories from commissioning, on how we got this beast working, and celebrate the people --- ~20,000 people who built it, ~600 who commissioned it --- whose collective efforts have created a revolutionary observatory now in its third of many years of scientific discovery.

Dr. Rigby is a civil servant Astrophysicist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Rigby serves as the Senior Project Scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). 

Dr. Rigby was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Joe Biden on May 3, 2024. 

Research webpage
 

Pandora’s Cluster, NASA

Astronomers estimate 50,000 sources of near-infrared light are represented in this image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Their light has travelled through varying distances to reach the telescope’s detectors, representing the vastness of space in a single image.

Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, I. Labbe (Swinburne University of Technology) and R. Bezanson (University of Pittsburgh). Image processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)