Science with the James Webb Telescope

Abstract

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will be a large (6.5m) cold (50K) telescope launched to the second Earth-Sun Lagrange point in 2011. It is the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, and is a partnership of NASA, ESA and CSA. Its science goals are to detect and identify the first galaxies to form in the universe, to trace the assembly of galaxies, and to study stellar and planetary system formation. JWST will have three instruments: The Near Infrared Camera and the Near Infrared multiobject Spectrometer will cover the wavelength range 0.6 to 5 microns, and the Mid Infrared Instrument will do both imaging and spectroscopy from 5 to 27 microns. In this special session, we review the status and capabilities of the observatory and instruments in the context of these major goals.