Special Thanks!

Special Thanks!• Wendy Freedman, Jason Kalirai and the SOC• Support team: Karyn Keidel, Darlene Spencer, Flory Hill &

Tina Schappell• Wendy Freedman, Jason Kalirai and the SOC• Outreach: Bonnie Eisenhammer, Frank Summers, Ray

Villard, Cheryl Gundy, Pam Jeffries, Steph Smith, Mario Livio, John Mather, speakers at Science Writer’s workshop.

• Website: Bernie Simon, Steve Dignan, Craig Hollinshead• AV, webcast: Calvin Tullos, Thomas Marufu, Susan Rose• Maryland Science Center: Meghan Jillson, John Grunsfeld• Café Azafran: Irena Stein et al.

Science Frontiers• More Thanks:

– NASA, ESA & CSA (for everything)– Northrop Grumman (for the telescope & the dinner!)– Instrument Teams – Speakers, Poster presenters, session chairs and lively

participants!

Sobering Wisdom from Norman Augustine

• Law XXXIX: Most programs start out slowly and then sort of taper off.

We can’t afford to be complacent!• Science is exciting!

– This meeting• Technical progress is impressive!

– Mirrors– Instruments are nearly built

• Cryo tests are showing excellent performance so far

• Challenges are inevitable– If it weren’t a stretch we wouldn’t be doing it

• The international partnership is fundamental– Wouldn’t have started without it– Will not survive without it– ¾ of the focal plane relies on it!

A few more of Augustine’s Laws• XXVII: There are only three kinds of programs

which suffer incessant budget tampering: those which are behind schedule, those which are on schedule, and those which used to be ahead of schedule.

• XXV: The only thing more costly than stretching the schedule of an established program is accelerating it.

• XIV: If a sufficient number of management layers are superimposed on top of each other, it can be assured that disaster is not left to chance.

If JWST launched tomorrow, we have great ideas

• What causes the rotational modulation of the spectrum of Uranus?

• Why is Neptune’s stratosphere hotter than Uranus’s?• Observe solar systems forming from proto-planetary disks

– Gravitational effects– Chemistry and transport of water and organics– Find a molten proto-earth afterglow?

• Study known exoplanets – Orbital constraints– Direct imaging– Sizes, atmospheres & thermal structure from transits & eclipses– Tricky observing strategy decisions – need to prioritize what to do

early

More great ideas• Can we find Pop III Pair-Instability Supernovae?

– May need help from lensing– Challenging to confirm

• Search for the first galaxies– May need help from lensing– How do we know we have found them?

• Lack of [OIII]? Strong HeII?

• Use strong lensing (50 or so) to– constrain dark-matter substructure– test density profiles– dissect AGN

The Extragalactic Background: Are we missing something?

Bock et al. 2006

At face value, the integrated extragalactic background light suggests a major source of energy in the near-IR

- early energetic galaxy formation?- bad subtraction of zodiacal foreground?

More great ideas• Measure H0 to 1.3% (JWST+GAIA)

– To constrain Dark Energy and neutrinos• Disentangle AGN and star-formation• Study the galaxy feedback cycle

– Demographics of star formation & stellar mass vs. morphology redshift & environment

– Evolution of Black-hole vs. bulge mass relation– Kinematics & abundances from spectra– Dust formation and destruction– H2 formation and destruction

• Dissect tidal disruption events– A dime a dozen by the time of JWST

What history teaches us• Known unknowns

– Detectors will have problems– There will be unforeseen problems on orbit– An essential component deep inside JWST will fail

on a different mission before JWST launches.– Budgets & plans will lag behind reality– The fact that you should have known will be

obvious in retrospect• Unknown unknowns

– How the detectors will fail– What the technical glitches will be– When a tornado will disrupt a test schedule– What Congress will decide to do at any given time

What history teaches us• Known unknowns

– Astronomers aren’t very good at making predictions– Also aren’t very good at posing answerable questions– Science won’t stand still– There will be surprise discoveries before & after launch– Observers will want to use JWST in unexpected ways– We will end up ignorant at a much deeper level

• Unknown unknowns– Which predictions are wrong– Which questions are ill posed– What the surprises will be– What the new observing modes will be

1980s: There should be a bright early epoch of galaxy formation

Where’s the kaboom? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!

Homework for Astronomers• Find targets:

– strong lenses, high-z QSOs, transiting planets• Make robust predictions• Make JWST scientifically efficient

– Help STScI plan for realistic observing strategies– Communicate & coordinate

• Mix of GO, GTO, Legacy projects is important– High fidelity simulations– Help design/develop the next generation of

analysis tools

Frontier Science Opportunities with JWST

STScI – June 6 – 8th, 2011

JWST Wiki For Community Input - http://jwstinput.wikidot.com/JWST Email For Community Input – [email protected] Facebook Page For Astronomers – “JWST Observer”