No talk on Wednesday, February 1, 2023
Kanishk Pandey
Friday, February 3, 2023
3:30 pm in Olin 141
Exploring the James Webb Space Telescope, a $10 Billion Time Machine
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has already revolutionized our understanding of the universe, from observing the most distant galaxies to magnificent nebulae to planets in our own neighborhood. In this talk, we will summarize the differences between the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and JWST by comparing their wavelength range, angular resolution, and location. We will then explore new science results from each of JWST’s four main themes, which are roughly categorized as the Early Universe, Galaxy Assembly, Star Formation, and Exoplanets. First, we will understand the concept of redshift and analyze JWST data from the most distant galaxy known to date. Next, we will discuss gravitational lensing and its role in constraining dark matter distributions using JWST’s image of the SMACS 0723 galaxy cluster. We will then explore the conservation laws of magneto-hydrodynamics and their role in star forming regions of several JWST images like the Carina Nebula. Finally, we will examine JWST’s role in detecting biosignatures from exoplanets via transmission spectroscopy, and we will interpret some preliminary results from exoplanets like LHS 475b, WASP 96b, and WASP 39b.
No talk Monday, February 6, 2023