“It’s the next big thing,” Seager, a planetary expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said of the anticipation in the astronomy community surrounding the Webb. “And then we could be role models for others.”The study of exoplanets exploded after the Kepler Space Telescope launched in 2009 to detect the worlds that belong to other stars. The film features women from all parts of astronomy, from an engineer on the Webb to the leaders of the Kepler. Like Tarter, she said that while the telescope will revolutionize what we can know about the cosmos, scientists and researchers might not find what they’re looking for. That’s okay, said Seager, who recalled a friend saying she had two choices after her husband died: crumble or keep moving toward her dream.

Source: Washington Post March 19, 2021 19:55 UTC