Observing with the James Webb Space Telescope: Glimpsing the First Stars

On Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024 at 7 pm (PDT), Dr. Dan Coe (Space Telescope Science Institute) will give a free, illustrated, non-technical lecture entitled:

“Observing with the James Webb Space Telescope: Glimpsing the First Stars"

Livestreamed on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/SVAstronomyLectures
[if you go to this web address the evening of the talk, you will see, and be able to participate in, the live event]

This virtual talk is part of the Silicon Valley Astronomy Lecture Series (through Foothill College), now in its 25th year.

The Webb Telescope was designed to look back in time, to study the first generation of stars, and reveal our cosmic origins. In what is only its second year of operation, JWST has already brought us tantalizingly close to our dream of seeing those first stars. Dr. Coe will tell us about observations of “Earendel,” the most distant star known, seen as it was 13 billion years ago. And we will marvel at the beauty of even more distant star clusters, including the Arc of Cosmic Gems. These objects were some the most important discoveries from his Hubble observing program, among them the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 that became JWST's first stunning deep field. Soon the Euclid and Roman telescopes will survey much more of the sky, providing many more exciting targets for JWST to study in detail.

Dan Coe is an ESA/AURA Astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. STScI is home to JWST mission control and science operations, where staff scientists like Dan support other astronomers using Hubble and JWST. Dan has also led the Hubble RELICS and JWST Cosmic Spring science teams in discovering and studying some of the most distant galaxies known in the early universe. Dan graduated from Cornell University, obtained his PhD from Johns Hopkins, and did postdocs at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and STScI before joining the STScI staff in 2013.

The lecture is co-sponsored by:

• The Foothill College Science, Tech, Engineering & Math Division
• The SETI Institute
• The Astronomical Society of the Pacific.

Past lectures in the series can also be found on YouTube at: http://youtube.com/svastronomylectures and as audio podcasts at: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1805595