Deciphering the Early Universe: From Photons To Publications

Brandon Matthews, Department of Physics, University of North Texas

When you look at an image from the James Webb Space Telescope, you are seeing more than just a picture. You're looking at the result of billions of photons filtered, counted, and interpreted by astronomers. But how do we know what we’re looking at when an object is just a speck on an image, or if the raw data are just lines, spikes, and dots? In this talk, we will explore how astronomers decode the distant cosmos using spectroscopy and photometry, guided by theoretical models and the mechanics of quantum physics. Brandon will focus on the latest JWST observations of extremely high-redshift galaxies and explain how we identify these objects and estimate their key properties -- often from just a faint signal buried in noise. This is an insight into the process of how light becomes knowledge, and how some of the most distant galaxies ever seen are recognized not by their appearance, but by their physical signatures.