The Guilford College Physics Department will host a NASA James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Community Event at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 20, featuring remarks by Physics faculty members and a Guilford graduate who has worked on the JWST project.
The program is at the Joseph M. Bryan Jr. ’60 Auditorium of the Frank Family Science Center on campus and is free and open to the public. Attendees are asked to be masked at the event and vaccinated.
During the presentation, Don Smith, Raymond Binford Professor of Physics, will offer an introduction to the Webb Telescope and its orbit. Thom Espinola, Glaxo Wellcome Professor of Physics, will talk about the science coming out of the project and some of the first images.
The program will include remarks and a Q&A with Karen Vance Richon ’84, an engineer leading the flight-dynamics team that designed the orbit for the spacecraft. Karen has worked in various positions in flight dynamics at NASA Goddard Flight Center since 1985.
Plans are to show a full-dome NASA movie about the engineering challenges of designing, launching and operating the Hubble Space Telescope, the New Horizons Spacecraft, JWST and future space missions.
Weather permitting, there will be a viewing from the J. Donald Cline ’78 Observatory following the main presentation, with assistance from Elise Weaver ’09, Astronomy Laboratory Director at Appalachian State University.
JWST is the largest telescope ever launched into space, succeeding the Hubble as NASA's flagship mission in astrophysics. Scientists have said that the telescope could unlock mysteries from as far back as 100 million years after the Big Bang.
For more information about JWST, visit webb.nasa.gov. For more information about the event, contact Raymond Binford Professor of Physics Don Smith at smith4@guilford.edu or 336.316.2162.