The James Webb Space Telescope: What We’ve Learned and What is Still to Come

The James Webb Space Telescope launched into space on Christmas Day in 2021, and began taking science data in July 2022.  This innovative facility has already made revolutionary advances across astronomy with its infrared capability and high sensitivity. Dr. Heidi B. Hammel, one of NASA’s six Interdisciplinary Scientists for JWST, will describe the telescope and what it was designed to do.  She will highlight some of the most exciting science results from JWST’s first two years, ranging from discoveries about our nearest neighbors in the Solar System, to the spectacular deep space images of the most distant galaxies, and everything in between.  She will finish with a look ahead not only for JWST, but for the future of astronomy.

Bio: Dr. Heidi B. Hammel has been a planetary astronomer for over 35 years, and spent many of those years in Ridgefield CT.  It was during that time that she joined the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) science team. She received her undergraduate degree from MIT and her Ph.D. from the University of Hawaii.  She is currently the Vice President for Science at AURA, an organization that operates large astronomical observatories for the United States government, including the Hubble Space Telescope, JWST, the Gemini Observatory, and many more.  Dr. Hammel primarily studies outer planets, but her work has spanned much of the Solar System.  She served on the imaging team for the Voyager 2 Neptune encounter in 1986, and led the Hubble Space Telescope Team to observe the Shoemaker-Levy 9 impact with Jupiter in 1994. In 2002, Dr. Hammel was selected by NASA in 2002 to be a JWST Interdisciplinary Scientist, with a program focused on observations of our Solar System, from near-Earth asteroids out to the Kuiper Belt.  In 2020, she received the American Astronomical Society’s Masursky Award for outstanding service to planetary science and exploration, and in 2023 NASA awarded Dr. Hammel an Exceptional Public Service Medal. Asteroid "1981 EC20" has been renamed 3530 Hammel in her honor.

This program is part of the Library's scholarly series, The Curious Mind: Exploration and Discovery, made possible by the generosity of the Friends of the Library.

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