The Search for the Earliest Galaxies in the Universe with JWST

Just weeks after the science operations began with JWST, many new candidates in the very early Universe were found.  However, until we get spectroscopy of them we can’t guarantee they are in the early Universe, and not closer to us but masquerading as early galaxies.  In October last year, we visited a patch of sky stared at by the Hubble space telescope for hundreds of hours (the Hubble Ultra Deep field).  Here we found and confirmed 2 new candidates further away than Hubble could see.  But that’s not all we can do with spectroscopy.  Emma will show you how we search for black holes in these galaxies, and how we learn about how heavy elements were formed in the Universe for the first time.

Biography

After completing a PhD at the University of Oxford, Emma worked in Edinburgh, Paris and Cambridge before taking up her current post at the University of Hertfordshire.  Emma is one of three Webb fellows (funded by STFC, the Science and Technology Facilities Council), who are tasked with doing science with JWST, but also take the public along for the journey.  She is part of a team that has over 800 hours of JWST time, and is most interested in learning how primordial Hydrogen and Helium are processed into heavier elements by the early generations of stars.