The Nobel laureate in Physics John C. Mather visit the Institute of Cosmos Sciences (IEEC-UB) [NOT TRANSLATED]

2016-09-30 00:00:00

On Wednesday September 28, the Nobel Prize in Physics and NASA astrophysicist John C. Mather visited the facilities of the Institute of Cosmos (IEEC-UB) Sciences at the Faculty of Physics at the University of Barcelona accompanied by institute director Lluís Garrido and the scientific director, Josep Maria Paredes.

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John C. Mather is the senior project manager of James Webb Space Telescope, which NASA plans to launch into space in 2018. During his visit to the Institute of Cosmos Sciences (IEEC-UB) Physical Sciences students of the faculty had the opportunity to delve into this huge project with a John C. Mather conference at the Aula Magna Enric Casassas.

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In front of a packed out auditorium, the winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2006 explained that the James Webb Space Telescope would be the most powerful ever built. And that it will open new areas of astronomy, with observations ranging from the first stars, galaxies and black holes , growth of galaxies, to the formation of stars and planetary systems, the evolution of planetary systems and living conditions here on earth, and perhaps elsewhere.

Mather compares the interpretation of the images we receive from space to the images of the audience of a football stadium. “We interpret images to know the history of the father who takes his son to football, those who have spent their lifetime going to the football stadium … Similarly we must interpret images of space to know the story of the Universe,” says Mather.

John C. Mather awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2006 for discovering the black body form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background [NOT TRANSLATED]