Keck Observatory Donor Salon Talk: First Images of Exoplanets With the Webb Telescope and a Look Forward to Keck’s New Exoplanet Imager

Guest Speaker:

Dr. Andy Skemer

Associate Professor of Astronomy & Astrophysics

University of California Santa Cruz

This past summer at UC Santa Cruz, an international team of astronomers assembled to produce the first images and spectra of exoplanets taken with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Dr. Skemer will give a first-hand account of these early days of JWST discovery and discuss some of the upcoming exoplanet science that can be expected from JWST over the next 20 years. Andy’s excitement about JWST is only exceeded by his excitement for Keck’s new exoplanet imaging spectrograph, SCALES, which is currently under construction at University of California Observatories. SCALES will image more exoplanets than JWST, including many planets that are still in the process of forming, and SCALES will use a novel type of spectrograph to study the compositions of the new exoplanets it finds. Andy will give an update on the SCALES construction, and show some of its new hardware, which has recently arrived.

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The staff and management of the W. M. Keck Observatory wish to offer our deepest gratitude to our Astronomy Talk Series sponsors, Rob and Terry Ryan.