Good Heavens! The Human Side of Astronomy Kings of the Cosmos
(Galactic image in the thumbnail - NASA - the James Webb Space Telescope Cartwheel galaxy, previously imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope).
Galaxies, we might say, are kings of the cosmos. Their splendor and size has really only come to be known in the last 100 years, since Edwin Hubble finally determined that Andromeda, and many other galaxies just like it, were not just nebulae in our own universe.
Hubble's telescope, the Hooker Telescope atop Mt. Wilson in California, was the largest of its day. But it's main mirror was only 100 inches. We say "only" because the collective surface area of the new James Webb Space Telescope, made up of 18 individual mirrors, is 21 feet, four inches!
And what it has thus far captured is nothing short of astonishing, like being in the presence of royalty.
On this episode, Wayne and Dan discuss some unsolved mysteries of star and galaxy formation and just how Webb's new galactic discoveries only serve to deepen the mystery and threaten to make scientists completely rewrite their assumptions about how stars and galaxies form!
Come and see!
Some stuff we talked about during the episode.
Geraint Lewis's work on stellar streams
New JWST discoveries of distant galaxies.
Dan's article on galaxies and our place in the cosmos.
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