James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)

JWST is the largest, most powerful and complex space telescope ever built and launched into space. It has fundamentally changed our understanding of the universe. JWST has four science instruments onboard: NIRCam, NIRSpec, MIRI and NIRISS. I am a team member of the NIRCam science team, which will conduct the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES) - the largest survey for galaxies in the early universe. We will peer back in time over 13.5 billion years to see the first galaxies born after the Big Bang. By comparing the faintest, earliest galaxies to today's grand spirals and ellipticals, we will understand how galaxies assemble over billions of years.

JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES)

The JADES program will executed by a collaboration composed of NIRSpec and NIRCam instrument team Guaranteed Time Observers (GTOs). This program will substantially redefine our understanding of the high redshift universe. JADES targets two well-studied fields, GOODS-N and GOODS-S because of the wealth of ancillary data and the low galactic and zodiacal backgrounds in these directions. The figure on the left summarizes the area covered in GOODS-S. With NIRSpec, we can take spectra of very faint galaxies (to AB=29 and beyond) out to 5μm; with NIRCam, we can obtain imaging of unprecedented depth with a resolution of 0.04−0.10" from the optical to 5μm; and with MIRI, we can complement NIRCam images at wavelengths longer than 5μm.

Key Science of JADES

  • When did the first galaxies form and the Dark Ages end?

  • Which sources reionize the Universe?

  • When did the first galaxies cease their star formation?

  • How did bulge and disk components in galaxies form?

  • What are the stellar populations of the first galaxies?

Other JWST programs I am involved in

Beside JADES, we are involved in a range of other JWST investigations:

  • UDF medium band survey: Using H-alpha emission to reconstruct Ly-alpha escape during the Epoch of Reionization
    (PIs Maseda, Tacchella, Williams)

  • Preventing the Slit-Loss Catastrophe Using Flexible, Spatially Resolved Galaxy Models
    (PI Leja incl. co-I Tacchella)

  • Where Cosmic Dawn Breaks First: Mapping the Primordial Overdensity Powering a z 9 Ionized Bubble
    (PI Naidu incl. co-I Tacchella)

  • A Pathfinder for JWST Spectroscopy: Deep High Spectral Resolution Maps of Galaxies over 1
    (PI Kassin incl. co-I Tacchella)

  • Anatomy of an ionized bubble at z=6.6: Which galaxies reionized the Universe?
    (PI Matthee incl. co-I Tacchella)

  • The Stellar and Gas Content of Galaxies at Cosmic Noon
    (PI Belli incl. co-I Tacchella)