NIH Demystifying Medicine: Seeing Biology and Physics in Space

The James Web Space Telescope (JWST) an infrared telescope 100 times more powerful than the famed Hubble Space Telescope. Among its goals is to observe the very first stars and galaxies to form in the universe, to map stellar and galactic evolution over a period of 13 billion years, and to search for biosignatures or signs of life on planets beyond our solar system.

JWST is the most ambitious astronomy project every undertaken. Come listen about the mission’s 30-year development and the remarkable observations expected over the next decade. And, as always, be prepared to be dazzled and demystified.

Dr. John Mather is a senior astrophysicist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and adjunct professor of physics at the University of Maryland College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences. He is the co-recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics for measuring key properties of the Big Bang.

Dr. John Mather also is the senior project scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), launched on December 25, 2021, and set to commence scientific observations in June 2022 at a distance 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, or four times past the distance of the Moon.

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