Alan Lohof will discuss the James Webb Space Telescope, which has been in operation since July 2022. The images and data collected by the telescope have already shaken long-held assumptions of the age and the size of the universe; the lecture will explore the telescope and how it functions before spending time looking at images captured by the telescope and learning what these images are revealing to humankind.
Debris from past space missions can stick around in Earth orbit for decades, threatening access to space. Traveling at 17,000 mph, even the smallest paint flecks and shrapnel can endanger active spacecraft and astronauts. Each collision in orbit can generate many thousands of new pieces of debris. How does space debris impact human activity in space? What are we doing to track debris and keep spacecraft safe? How do we keep Earth orbit usable for future generations? We will examine these and other questions in an interactive presentation.