Invisible Infrared: Connecting the James Webb Space Telescope & Climate Change

Sydney Ideas

Join Dr Karl Kruszelnicki and Professor Peter Tuthill on a guided tour of the latest photos from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) – our Infrared Eye in the Sky. The JWST is NASA’s largest and most powerful space science telescope ever constructed and Peter Tuthill is the only Australian to have an experiment on it - a tremendous feat! See stars romancing and dancing, being born, growing up, dying and giving birth to new stars. The JWST might even answer the big question – “does life exist outside the Earth?” Through the lens of astronomy, we also explore fresh angles on planetary climates. The physics that control planetary atmospheres – temperatures and energy budgets for matter and radiation - is straight-forward. Our planetary siblings (Venus and Mars) started well, but ended hot and cold. On Earth, we humans have tipped the energy budget so that today, as compared to 1850, the Earth’s atmosphere takes in an extra 600,000 Hiroshima atom bombs of infrared heat from the Sun – each and every day! The good news is that with today’s technologies, we can stop, and reverse, climate change. This Sydney Ideas event was held on Wednesday 7 September 2022 at the Charles Perkins Centre Auditorium. To view the video of the event, to see the slides, demonstration and captions, please go to the Sydney Ideas website. https://www.sydney.edu.au/engage/events-sponsorships/sydney-ideas/2022/peter-tuthill-karl-kruszelnicki-invisible-infared.html