Rogier Windhorst will give the free 2014 Bullitt Lecture in Astronomy at 6 p.m. in Gheens Science Hall and Rauch Planetarium. The annual lecture, “Beyond Hubble: From Exoplanets to First Stars with the James Webb Space Telescope,” and reception afterward are intended for the general public.
The professor is a member of the cosmology research group at Arizona State University’s School of Earth and Space Exploration and an interdisciplinary scientist with the James Webb Space Telescope.
The new telescope, scheduled for a 2018 launch, is an orbiting infrared observatory intended to continue and expand the discoveries achieved by the Hubble telescope, which was launched in 1990 and is still operating.
The Webb telescope will have longer wavelength capability to look more deeply into space and will operate farther from Earth than the Hubble. The team hopes it will reveal information about how stars and planetary systems are formed.
UofL’s physics and astronomy department and the Gheens Science Hall and Rauch Planetarium present the annual Bullitt lectures through an endowment established by the family of former U.S. Solicitor General William Marshall Bullitt.
For more information, contact Gerry Williger at 502-852-0821 or gmwill06@louisville.edu