Speaker
Description
The launch of the Hubble Space Telescope in 1990 enabled astronomers to make measurements of the universe of unprecedented accuracy. The James Webb Space Telescope, launched on December 25, 2021, is now delivering even higher accuracy. Professor Freedman will describe her work using the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes measuring the rate at which the universe is expanding, a quantity known as the Hubble constant, which gives a measure of the size and the age of the universe. She will briefly describe these measurements, and how recent results suggest that there may be a missing piece in our current understanding of cosmology. Professor Freedman spent 30 years of her career at the Carnegie Observatories, in Pasadena, CA, 11 of those as Director, during which time she led an international project to build one of the largest telescopes in the world, the Giant Magellan Telescope. She now is the John and Marion Sullivan University Professor in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago.
