In a dimmed school library, watching a screen full of stars, students raised multiple questions about humanity’s latest satellite. Why is it called the “James Webb Space Telescope”? What are its sunshades made of? Does it ever stop taking pictures?
Isaac Laseter answered: JWST was named after NASA’s director during the Apollo missions; its sunshades are made of fabric with a metallic coating; it will snap dazzling photos until it runs out of fuel in 10 years, and slowly falls out of orbit.
Laseter is uniquely qualified to discuss the JWST because he was tapped for the team who built the Near Infrared Spectrograph, one of four instruments JWST uses to view distant space. He is now on NASA’s payroll and earning a Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin. On Wednesday, he returned to his Poplar Bluff roots and presented the wonders of the universe to kids at Sacred Heart Catholic School.
It was a nostalgic trip for Laseter, who still recalls reading his first astronomy books at Sacred Heart. He has similarly fond memories of Poplar Bluff High School and the teachers who laid the foundations of his college experience.
“It’s been nice to come back, a reflective moment,” he said.
Another presentation at PBHS was set for the next day, wherein Laseter planned to share greater details about his research into the evolution of galaxies. But both of his presentations had the same core: exactly why and how the JWST revolutionizes cosmology.
“I want to give the reason why this telescope is important because it has received a lot of excitement, but sometimes people miss the mark on why it is important for the actual research,” he said. “So I like to give that foundation of why are we even looking in the infrared, why are we even doing this, just to show that there’s a lot of depth that goes into the planning of the actual science.”
JWST’s predecessor, the famous Hubble Space Telescope, is an optical telescope and only registers light visible to humans. The JWST sees near- and mid-infrared wavelengths of light, which punch through dust clouds and other obstacles and reveal more of the universe. By capturing more light more clearly than ever, JWST can capture afterimages of galaxies as they were in the distant past.
“How do I observe what happened yesterday? How do I observe what happened 10 billion years ago? When we look out at the universe we have to wait for light to get to us. So if that light was emitted 1 million years ago, we’re seeing light that’s 1 million years old ... It’s kind of a wild concept but ultimately, telescopes, we use them as time machines,” he explained.
Laseter fielded dozens of questions from students. Sacred Heart Principal Connie Roberson, who invited him to speak, was happy to see the kids investing in science.
“I thought they did very well, they asked great questions and are fascinated with space. They’re very smart,” she said.
Laseter hopes students take away the knowledge that cosmology is a deep, fascinating field.
“There’s so much more depth to what’s going on than what’s actually just being initially shown. And that’s what makes it exciting, and that’s why we do the research. Also, that it’s just really cool,” he said.