A Journey with Dr. Jane Rigby, Senior NASA JWST Project Scientist

The discussion moderators of the first ISSI Breakthrough Workshop co-organized by Jane Rigby (4th person from left).
The discussion moderators of the first ISSI Breakthrough Workshop co-organized by Jane Rigby (4th person from left).

Odyssey through space and time

Already at the age of 5, Jane Rigby—now Senior NASA JWST Project Scientist and one of the conveners of the first ISSI Breakthrough Workshop—got hooked by a TV show about the cosmos. Growing up in a small town, she says, makes people go search for things to do. For Jane, this was the public library of her town. In this library, she found books that fulfilled her curiosity about what’s beyond her little town, and also beyond our planet. Four decades later, Jane is presenting the first JWST images to the President of the United States, Joe Biden, at the White House.

Trials and Triumphs

Given her early fascination with space, her career path seemed quite like a straight line, but there were definitely moments that changed its direction. Overseeing submission proposals for using the world’s sharpest lenses on the universe, she acknowledges the importance to withstand academic rejection. Space scientists putting their greatest ideas out there to be evaluated is making people vulnerable to some degree. Every year there are great ideas submitted worth to fill nine years of telescope usage, Jane says. That many ideas—no matter how great they are—simply cannot be accommodated. So, great ideas must be rejected frequently.

Pioneering Diversity and Inclusion

Having attended many meetings as the only woman in the room, Jane has seen significant development towards a more gender-diverse and welcoming work environment. She says that a major factor that has changed, and contributed to continue this change, is that more scientists today are challenging bullying in the work place and advocating for change more readily. The readiness to speak up not only counteracts widespread harassment directly, but also helps to prevent it as the problem gets more widely acknowledged and understood.

A Collaborative Endeavour

Jane appreciates the ISSI workshop not only because they assembled a diverse group of researchers in the welcoming environment at ISSI, but also because it allows her and her peers to take a step back and contemplate what has been learned. The JWST telescope is about 100 times more sensitive than the best performing telescopes before, which critically also leads to much, much faster observations: „What used to take a year before, can now be done in one hour, creating new possibilities. And these new possibilities are approached with so much joy.“ Jane says enthusiastically and further elaborates that it feels like watching a firework show, where fascinating discoveries are made in all parts of the field at the moment.

At ISSI, Jane says, they brought a broad team of experts together to take a step back and have a coordinated look at all these fireworks and and find the biggest, overarching themes. She further elaborates: „The excitement of the workshop participants is palpable, and we can’t help to discuss about what’s next.“

By having a more complete view on the recent insights, it becomes clear that there are some key advances in our understanding of the first Billion years in the Universe. Surprisingly, thousands of galaxies seemed to have formed already that early on. They formed fast, converted gas into stars very efficiently, and a significant amount of these early galaxies host massive black holes. „We see a fast, organised growth of galaxies that are brighter and have appeared earlier than what we have thought“, Jane says with similarly bright eyes underscoring her excitement.

Another New Era of Discovery

As technology evolves, so does our understanding of the cosmos. From Galileo and the discovery of the Jovian planetary system—a little „solar system“ within a solar system—Jane says it is how space science uses to evolve. However, back in Galileo’s days, and even a few years back, it was unlike harder to get access to the latest data. Today, JWST data is openly available, latest one year after they have been recorded. This caused quite a surprise when Jane one day came back to the house after mowing the lawn and looked at her phone just to find the data she just collected being already used and shared by space enthusiasts online.

Sharing the Wonder of Space

Jane is all in when it comes to sharing her knowledge about our universe, such as directly with the president of the United States or in plenary lectures with American Astronomical Society. Here in Bern, Jane takes on the role as moderator of the panel discussion at the ‚ISSI Cosmic Beginnings’ event. She takes this opportunity to share the excitement of the space science community with the public and promote the humanity of the recent discoveries: „The JWST telescope is a true human endeavour, crossing geographic and other boundaries, and something inherently good.“

 

 

Re-watch the ISSI ‘Cosmic Beginnings’ lectures and panel discussion here.

Panel discussion moderated by Jane Rigby at the ISSI ‚Cosmic Beginnings‘ event.
Panel discussion moderated by Jane Rigby at the ISSI ‚Cosmic Beginnings‘ event.

The Economics and Law of Space-Based Commerce (Conference hosted by WTI and ISSI | 17–18 January 2024)

This conference (17–18 January 2024) will focus on the economics and governance of commercialisation in outer space. It will look at the applicability of economic concepts, the concepts of international economic law, and the concepts of economic governance to space-based commerce.

The goal is twofold: The first goal is identifying promising areas for future research along the lines outlined above, specifically a cross-disciplinary mix of economics, law, political science, and applied natural science. The second goal is to enlist interested researchers in setting up a research and workshop agenda and loose organizational/coordinating structure (a researcher network) based on the areas identified.

The conference will be hosted jointly by the International Space Science Institute and the World Trade Institute.

Find here the complete program >>

You can join online the conference, therefore please register here.

“Hubble and the James Webb Space Telescope: A Tale of Two Observatories in Space” with John M. Grunsfeld, NASA Astronaut

The Hubble Space Telescope has been called the most productive scientific instrument in human history. Launched in 1990, the telescope has performed observations which have measured the age of the Universe, confirmed the existence of black holes, discovered the accelerating Universe, and amazed the general public. On Christmas day in 2021 the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was launched into space after decades of development. JWST was designed to extend the view of Hubble in regions of the cosmos Hubble can’t penetrate. JWST is exceeding the grand expectations of its ability to unravel the mysteries of the Universe. Join Astronaut/Astrophysicist John Grunsfeld as he takes us through the stories of Hubble and Webb.

Astronaut John M. Grunsfeld

John M. Grunsfeld is a scientist and former astronaut with extensive experience as a leader in human space exploration, space science missions, and national space policy. He has served as a NASA astronaut, the Associate Administrator for Science, and Chief Scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. Previously he served as the Deputy Director of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, managing the science program for the Hubble Space Telescope and the forthcoming James Webb Space Telescope. Grunsfeld’s scientific research is in planetary science and the search for life beyond Earth. He has deep knowledge in Earth and Climate science and strategies to fight climate change. 

Talk was recorded on June 23, 2023