“Resolving the Local Universe with the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes”

Most galaxies are so far away that they appear to us only as faint smudges. However, for galaxies that reside in our Galactic neighborhood, the clarity and sensitivity of the Hubble Space Telescope transforms them from smudges into collections of individual stars. These observations allow astronomers to study how galaxies form and evolve one star at a time. This talk will highlight some of the amazing science and images produced by Hubble observations of local galaxies from the past three decades. The pinnacle of these studies is the Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Treasury (PHAT) program, an 800 hour Hubble survey of our sibling galaxy Andromeda, and one of the largest Hubble programs ever conducted. Hubble’s successor, The James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled to launch in 2021, will also be discussed.
The Speaker is:  Daniel Weisz, UC Berkeley, Co-Investigator on the Kepler Mission