texas a&m university physics graduate ralph schilling 68 has seen and done a lot of cool and cosmic things during his 34-year career spent creating and constructing space systems for starters his technical handiwork included contributions to two of nasas great observatories as a science co-investigator for nasas high energy astronomy observatories program in the early 1970s he helped develop gamma-ray telescope technology that was utilized for the compton gamma ray observatory beginning in 1980 his contributions to the chandra x-ray observatory spanned the entire development cycle of that system from conceptual design and technology development through its insertion into high elliptical earth-orbit to initiate the observing program texas a&m former students ralph and marsha schilling (center) were honored by then-dean of science h joseph newton (right) and director of development michael morelius 98 (left) with a plaque recognizing their 2013 gift to establish the marsha l 69 and ralph f schilling 68 chair in experimental physics jointly held by texas a&m astronomer casey papovich and texas a&m nuclear physicist john hardy all that aside its in retirement that schilling is poised to experience his most profound first: seeing one of his inaugural chair holders test-drive the scientific capabilities of the newest nasa program to which he contributed the james webb space telescope texas a&m astronomer casey papovich co-holder of the marsha l 69 and ralph f schilling 68 chair in experimental physics is a co-investigator for one of the 13 proposals recently selected from the 106 submitted to nasa to go forward as the first official round of jwst science when the $8 billion successor to the hubble space telescope launches in 2019 we have a team of 105 people from 10 countries and we were selected by nasa to get 60 hours of jwst time in the first three months of the mission to demonstrate the science capabilities to study the most distant galaxies papovich said i will be leading the analysis of one of the webbs three instruments were testing i am also one of four scientists within our group of co-investigators who has a lead role on several of the science cases that will showcase its full observational prowess dr casey papovich university of texas at austin astronomer steven finkelstein who completed his postdoctoral studies at texas a&m under papovich is the principal investigator for the project known as the cosmic evolution early release science (ceers) survey that will study the oldest galaxies in the universe to better understand their composition and evolution over time it would take seven hubble mirrors to equal the collecting area of the james webb which completed final cryogenic testing at nasas johnson space center in houston earlier this month the bigger the mirror the fainter the light that can be collected making the webb the ideal candidate to find the very faintest originating from the universes birth this will be the first time anyone has had access to this brand-new telescope that is in some ways 100 times better than hubble finkelstein said this telescope will reveal enormous truths the moment we turn it on papovich a member of the george p and cynthia woods mitchell institute for fundamental physics and astronomy joined the texas a&m department of physics and astronomy in 2008 he and finkelstein a 2011 hubble fellow were part of a prior team that discovered the universes most distant galaxy a breakthrough deemed one of texas monthlys top five texas-based scientific discoveries for 2013 once launched into space the webb telescopes 18-segmented gold mirror is specially designed to capture infrared light from the first galaxies that formed in the early universe and will help the telescope peer inside dust clouds where stars and planetary systems are forming today (credit: nasa / desiree stover) in addition to papovich the ceers team includes texas a&m astronomy graduate students vincent estrada-carpenter 19 and taylor hutchison 18 the jwst will give them a number of technical advantages including visibility of a broad range of infrared light that is blocked from ground-based telescopes by the earths atmosphere with no bright earth atmosphere to drown out the faint objects the astronomers will be able to see the same regions of the sky they did with hubble but to both greater detail and distances given the webbs higher resolution and vastly superior light-collecting capabilities we have really pushed hubble and other telescopes to their very limits yet only scratched the surface of what galaxies in the very early universe were like papovich said we have some expectations for what we should find with the jwst but honestly were looking into the unknown the most amazing discoveries will be things that no one can predict for schilling the former student and physics graduate who cut his technological teeth as a graduate student in the texas a&m cyclotron institute and helped make it all possible through his professional innovation and in papovichs case personal philanthropy the full-circle effect is both powerful and palpable during my career in aerospace i participated in development of the system architecture and enabling technology for the jwst so it is especially exciting and rewarding for my wife and me that professor papovich who holds the faculty chair we sponsored was selected for the initial observing program schilling said to learn more about papovich and his research visit http://physicstamuedu/people/papovich/ for more information on the james webb space telescope a joint project of nasa the european space agency and the canadian space agency go to https://wwwjwstnasagov/ # # # # # # # # # # about research at texas a&m university: as one of the worlds leading research institutions texas a&m is at the forefront in making significant contributions to scholarship and discovery including that of science and technology research conducted at texas a&m represented annual expenditures of more than $8927 million in fiscal year 2016 texas a&m ranked in the top 20 of the national science foundations higher education research and development survey (2015) based on expenditures of more than $8666 million in fiscal year 2015 texas a&ms research creates new knowledge that provides basic fundamental and applied contributions resulting in many cases in economic benefits to the state nation and world to learn more visit http://researchtamuedu -atm- contact: shana k hutchins (979) 862-1237 or shutchins@sciencetamuedu or dr casey papovich (979) 862-2704 or papovich@physicstamuedu