The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is the hotly-anticipated successor to the Hubble Space Telescope due for launch in 2019. JWST is a collaboration between the European Space Agency, NASA, and the Canadian space agencies with significant UK involvement in its design, construction, and ultimately scientific exploitation. With its unprecedented resolution, wavelength coverage, and sensitivity JWST has the promise to potentially revolutionise our understanding of the Universe. JWST’s versatility will allow it to tackle a broad range of open questions in astrophysics from identifying examples of the first stars and galaxies to form in the Universe to the study of the atmospheres of planets around other stars.

Speaker: Stephen Wilkins