FROM THE PODCAST
Steven Finkelstein Associate professor of astronomy, The University of Texas at Austin
BY OLIVIA ALDRIDGE
In July, President Joe Biden released some of the first images from the James Webb Space Telescope, a new tool for NASA that is 100 times more powerful than the Hubble telescope. Since that first deep space field image was released, more images and data have become available from Webb, including shots of Jupiter, the Southern Ring Nebula and more. These images may have captured the world’s attention, but they also have a local connection: several faculty members from The University of Texas at Austin’s Astronomy Department will be among the first to lead projects using the telescope, including Steven Finkelstein, an associate profes- sor of astronomy at UT. This is an excerpt from Finkelstein's interview with Community Impact Newspaper's podcast the Austin Breakdown, lightly edited for length and clarity Listen to the full interview at communityimpact.com/podcast for more of Finkelstein’s insights on studies connected to the James Webb Space Telescope.
THE INITIAL IMAGES FROM THE JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE WERE YEARS IN THE MAKING. WHAT WAS YOUR INITIAL REACTION WHEN YOU FIRST GOT TO VIEW IMAGES CAPTURED BY THE TELESCOPE? The initial reaction was astonishment. We knew that it was going to be the most powerful telescope we’ve ever launched into space, and we’d made simulated images of what we think Webb should see. But seeing the actual images, especially in full color, I think the most astonishing thing for me is the level of detail. You can see not just nearby galaxies, but really distant galaxies. WEBB IS EXPECTED TO REMAIN IN SERVICE FOR THE NEXT DECADE-PLUS. WHAT CAN WE EXPECT TO COME FROM ITS MISSION IN THAT TIME? This is where things get really exciting, because everything we’re doing now is based on what we thought we would see or what we could predict. ... With these first images, we’re going to discover lots of questions we didn’t even know how to ask, and that will really inform how we use the telescope into the future. Even just in this first year of operations, there will be over 500 hours, if not 1,000 hours, going to programs studying the very distant universe. And that’s what I’m really excited about: to try and find some of the earliest galaxies forming after the Big Bang, trying to understand what they’re like. Just in our first few days with the data, we’ve already seen some exciting objects that we’re still working our way through. It will be some time, I think, before we’re ready to talk about it in public, because we want to make sure we get it right, but that’s really going to inform how we use the telescope in the future. ... I think it’d be great eventually to get that to 1,000 hours and to see the
deepest view that we’ll ever be able to get of the universe. TELL ME SPECIFICALLY ABOUT THE WORK YOU AND YOUR COLLEAGUES ARE DOING WITH THE TELESCOPE AT UT. CAN YOU GIVE US AN IDEA OF THE SCOPE OF THE SURVEYS THAT YOU’RE CONDUCTING? There’s three big ... surveys being led at UT. There’s the early release science survey called CEERS, which stands for the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science survey. That’s what we’re working on today ... [NASA] did a program to select early release science programs covering all of astronomy. We’re sort of the “distant universe” early release science program, but there’s a solar system one and there’s a nearby galaxy one [as well] with all of them getting data very, very early this year. Then there’s [the Next Generation Deep Extraga- lactic Exploratory Public] survey. That’s Webb’s first attempt at a deeper-than-Hubble Deep Field, or really deep field. And then the biggest program in Cycle 1 is led by my colleague, Professor Caitlin Casey. That’s called the COSMOS-Webb program, and that’s trying to make the widest view of the distant universe. So if you’re taking a sort of fixed amount of telescope time, you can decide, “Do I want to just point at one spot in the sky and kind of drill deeply, or do I want to go not quite as long, but build up a map, what we would call a mosaic, in an area of the sky?” The combination of NGDEEP and COSMOS-Webb allows us to do both in the first year. NGDEEP is our deep-drilling field. We’re going to try and go very deep, but over a pretty narrow spot in the sky. ... The COSMOS-Webb area is going to be bigger than the size of the full moon in the sky—so not all that deep, but going very, very, very wide, trying to find the most massive galaxies, the beasts in the early universe.
HUBBLE
WEBB
The James Webb Space Telescope allows NASA to see higher-resolution images of distant galaxies than the Hubble Space Telescope previously captured.
WHAT DO YOU THINK THE VALUE IS TO LEARNING MORE ABOUT THOSE EARLY PARTS OF THE UNIVERSE AND THOSE EARLY GALAXIES? There are a lot of ways to answer this question, and I think you’d get a different answer from every scientist you talk to. I think of it as the ultimate origin story. Humans throughout time have been driven to understand where we come from, and we’re sort of taking that to the extreme trying to figure out where our Milky Way galaxy comes from. We know that galaxies grow with time, but we don’t know how they get started. So by trying to look at the very, very early universe, we’re really getting the first glimpse into how our own Milky Way galaxy came to be.
This is an excerpt from an interview for the Austin Breakdown, Community Impact ’s weekly local podcast, lightly edited for length and clarity. The Austin Breakdown is hosted by Olivia Aldridge and released every Friday morning wherever podcasts are available. Listen to the full interview for more of Steven Finkelstein’s insights on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and developments in astronomy research at The University of Texas at Austin.
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