Speakers from NASA‘s Goddard Space Flight Centerwill present the latest Getting to Know Goddard session – “Observatories: Our Eyes Into the Unknown” – on July 22, 2021, from 1 to 2 p.m. EDT. They will share overviews of future missions that, once launched, will continue to shape our understanding of the universe. 

For centuries, humans have looked to the night sky for navigation and inspiration. Today, we also look to the sky to help answer some of the most fundamental questions, like how our universe began and evolved; how galaxies, stars and planets came to be; and whether we are alone. Using space-based telescopes, we’ve searched for planets and tracked the evolution of stars and galaxies. We use these powerful telescopes at Goddard to explore the hidden corners of our galaxy and the universe. These great observatories have transformed our understanding of the universe and have even given us insights into our own planet and place in the cosmos.

Goddard’s role in observatories addresses a need in the science community, designs and builds spacecraft, develops navigation and control, and collects science data. 

Speakers include:

  • Knicole Colon, deputy project scientist for exoplanet science on the James Webb Space Telescope project. Webb will be the largest, most powerful and complex space telescope ever built. It launches this year and will travel farther from Earth than any previous telescope. 
  • Greg Mosby, detector scientist on the Roman Space Telescope mission. Named after a female NASA scientist, the telescope is designed to unravel the secrets of dark energy and dark matter, search for and image exoplanets, and explore infrared astrophysics. 
  • Elisa Quintana, astrophysicist and principal investigator for the Pandora Project, explains our current collaboration with  ESA (European Space Agency) to provide real-time air quality data using telescopes facing Earth

The session will be broadcast and available for free to the public at: https://video.ibm.com/channel/nasa-gsfc. 

Advance questions may be submitted to https://gsfc.cnf.io/sessions/zrs1. Questions during the presentation may be submitted using the chat feature next to the video.

If you would like to request an accommodation (e.g., sign language  interpreter, captioning service, reader services, etc.) to participate in this program, please contact Merechia Davis, disability program manager in the Goddard Equal Opportunity Programs Office, at 301-286-0561 or merechia.n.davis@nasa.gov.

The Getting to Know Goddard speaker series was created to introduce the work being done at Goddard to the public. If you would like to join our mailing list to receive notifications about events like Getting to Know Goddard, please join our mailing list at https://nvite.jsc.nasa.gov/RSVP/?id=8gkce.