The newest images from the James Webb Space Telescope, released today by NASA and the Space Telescope Science Institute, show stars, gas, and dust on small scales in 19 nearby disk galaxies beyond our own Milky Way. David Thilker Principal research scientist "We finally have this astonishingly detailed and comprehensive picture of the ingredients and products of star formation." These observations are particularly exciting for David Thilker, principal research scientist in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Hopkins. Over the last two decades, Thilker has witnessed telescope images of star formation grow progressively clearer thanks to advances in technology, culminating in Webb's photos of dusty sites that were previously almost invisible. "We finally have this astonishingly detailed and comprehensive picture of the ingredients and products of star formation," Thilker says.
