Northwestern astronomer Farhad Yusef-Zadeh discusses his fortune in having time on the James Webb Space Telescope, which will be launched into space this month

Twenty-five years in the making, the $10 billion telescope is an unprecedented observatory for space exploration. Unlike Hubble, the James Webb Space Telescope will work in infrared light, providing astronomers — including Northwestern’s Farhad Yusef-Zadeh — with the ability to peer into the early life of the universe, view Earth-size planets outside our solar system and learn about familiar and yet-to-be-discovered objects in our solar system.

NASA plans to launch Webb later this month from Europe’s spaceport in French Guiana, and live coverage will air on its website, NASA TV and the NASA app.

“Hubble works mainly in the optical part of the light spectrum and is limited in many ways. Webb is a telescope on steroids, addressing lots of questions. As we monitor how the black hole behaves, Webb will allow us to observe emissions activity on an hourly time scale in two different infrared bands with the same telescope at the same time,” said Yusef-Zadeh. That’s a big technical achievement. It’s very powerful to obtain continuous time coverage. Usually, we can only observe one band at a time and have to switch back and forth.”

Northwestern Now spoke to Zadeh about his work studying the black hole called Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*) and its extreme environment and what Webb will enable him to do. Read the interview.