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…