Session A01: Early Science Results from the James Webb Space Telescope

The James Webb Space Telescope: New capabilities and science

The James Webb Space Telescope was launched on Christmas Day 2021 after 25 years of planning, design, development, integration, and testing. Following a six-month deployment and commissioning period, the first science results from Webb have engaged the public and surprised the scientists. Webb's science goals address our origins and the history of the universe: the first stars and galaxies that formed after the Big Band; the morphological and dynamical buildup of galaxies; the formation of stars and planetary systems; and exoplanets, our Solar System, and the conditions for life. In its first months of scientific operations, Webb has already found the most distant galaxies ever seen. With these galaxies we can look back 13.5 billion years of the 13.8 billion years since the Big Bang, allowing us to study early galaxies that formed under very different conditions than we see today. Webb has made the first detection of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of an exoplanet and has examined the interactions between giant stars and the planets that are forming near them. I will review Webb's construction, launch, and deployments, and discuss the commissioning of the telescope and its instruments. I will describe what we have learned in the first nine months of science results from the telescope and look ahead to additional results expected in the coming years.   

Exploring new frontiers in exoplanetary science with the James Webb Space Telescope

Based on data from less than a year of scientific operations, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is without a doubt humanity's sharpest eye to look at the infrared Universe. From being able to detect the faint glow of the first galaxies to being able to characterize the atmospheres of Earth-sized worlds, the observatory's unique capabilities is allowing it to perform a wide range of exciting science, that will undoubtedly revolutionize our understanding of the Universe. In this talk, I will introduce the new frontiers JWST will be --- and is already --- exploring in the field of exoplanetary science during its very first year of scientific operations. Through some early results on new dimensions being explored for gas giant exoplanets, as well as first looks at the atmospheres and surfaces of small, rocky exoplanets, I will show how JWST is already dramatically changing our understanding of planetary systems in the cosmos --- and how this is allowing us to put our very own Solar System in this exoplanetary context.   

Pushing the Edge of the Cosmic Frontier with JWST

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) launched in December 2021, first started collecting data in June 2022, and is already revolutionizing our understanding of the distant Universe. With it's large segmented mirror, and optimization for infrared wavelengths, JWST was designed to detect and characterize some of the first galaxies to form in our universe and investigate how galaxies then evolve over the age of the Universe to the present day. In this talk, I will present how JWST has pushed our cosmic frontier beyond what was possible with Hubble and share some early results from extragalactic deep surveys and their implications for our understanding of the early universe.