Julie McEnery is the Project Scientist for the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. In this role, she is the scientific lead of a NASA Astrophysics flagship mission that will study the expansion history of the Universe, the evolution of cosmic structure and perform a statistical census of planets around other stars. Her scientific research focuses on the study of extreme high energy transients and the development of the ground and space based observatories needed to pursue this. She is the senior scientist for high energy astrophysics at Goddard Space Flight Center, and co-director of the Joint Space Sciences Center between Goddard and the University of Maryland.
In this episode, Ben and Julie discuss the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, its timeline and how it compares to the JWST: "Instead of seeing deep, seeing wide".
What you will hear in this episode
Introduction to Dr Julie McEnery
Working for NASA
How Julie's fascination with space started
What the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is
The importance of the Nancy Grace name
The "Mother of Hubble"
The timeline for launch
A day in the life at the current build stage (as of 2022)
The impact of JWST
"Instead of seeing deep, seeing wide"
Dark energy and dark matter
Predictions about findings from the telescope
Searching for exoplanets
Direct images of planets similar to our own
Falcon Heavy launch and what to watch out for
Advice to young scientists and engineers
Follow the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope
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