Dr. Jane Rigby will be giving a public talk, titled: “The Webb Telescope’s Transformative Science” at 4PM on October 27, 2024 at The Yale University Art Gallery(opens in a new window/tab), Lecture Theater - 1111 Chapel Street (cross street York Street).
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 (opens in a new window/tab) by President Joe Biden on May 3, 2024.
Now in science operations, NASA’s Webb Telescope is the most powerful telescope ever built. Science results are now pouring in from Webb like a waterfall. In this talk, Dr. Riby will summarize what this Webb is, how it works, and the breadth and the depth of its science program, from planets in our own solar system to galaxies seen when the Universe was young. She will touch on the power of using Webb in combination with cosmic telescopes, also known as gravitational lenses. And she will throw in a few human stories about the international, collective effort of 20,000 people to build this telescope, and speculate on what these new views of the universe tell us about our place in the universe.
This event, and the entire Tinsley Workshop, organized and funded by the Yale Department of Astronomy, is being co-sponsored by the Heising Simons Foundation, the Yale Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and the Yale Center for Astronomy & Astrophysics.