First Light: Hunting for Galaxies at the Dawn of Cosmic Time

Guido Roberts-Borsani, UCLA
Recorded live on Tuesday, September 6, 2022

The emergence of the first galaxies some 13.5 billion years ago had a profound effect on the state of the universe. It marks the end of the so-called "Dark Ages" and begins the Epoch of Reionization. Finding and characterizing the distant sources responsible for ionizing the intergalactic medium is imperative to answer questions such as: When did the first galaxies form? Did they have upermassive black holes? What kind of stars did they host?

Dr. Roberts-Borsani will discuss how astronomers are pushing the limits of current observatories to hunt for these initial galaxies and describe the efforts to characterize their exceptional natures. He will also illustrate how first results from the James Webb Space Telescope are already revolutionizing our search and providing an unprecedented window into early galaxy evolution.

News from the Universe starts at 3:27
Main talk starts at 15:34

Host: Frank Summers, Space Telescope Science Institute