Jane Rigby

Shuttle Discovery from Goddard

admin — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 22:55:31 +0000

I was privileged yesterday to watch space shuttle Discovery make her final flight, circling over Washington, DC, piggybacked on a 747, before landing at the Dulles airport, bound for the Smithsonian. Discovery made a flyby over my workplace, the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, to honor our employees for the work they did on the space shuttle program. Here’s a photo of Discovery plus her 747 ferry, a photo I snapped from the roof above my office. There’s a great Flickr pool of the Goddard flyover, with better photos.

Discovery was the shuttle that launched the Hubble Space Telescope; Discovery also serviced Hubble twice, giving it some of the capabilities that I use in my research.

Updated my research page

admin — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 22:44:01 +0000

I’ve updated my description of current research, by adding recent papers, and adding a non-jargony introduction which will hopefully be accessible to a wide variety of audience. I also explicitly stated that I’m always recruiting graduate students for research projects, as well as postdocs through the NASA Postdoctoral Program.

Hubble zooms in on lensed galaxy

admin — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 13:36:26 +0000

We just had a press release on our gorgeous new Hubble images of a gravitationally lensed galaxy:

A team of astronomers aimed Hubble at one of the most striking examples of gravitational lensing, a nearly 90-degree arc of light in the galaxy cluster RCS2 032727-132623. Hubble’s view of the distant background galaxy, which lies nearly 10 billion light-years away, is significantly more detailed than could ever be achieved without the help of the gravitational lens.

This observation provides a unique opportunity to study the physical properties of a galaxy vigorously forming stars when the universe was only one-third its present age. The results have been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal.

I’m on twitter

admin — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 13:33:16 +0000

I’m on Twitter, at JaneRRigby.

Public talk at Goddard visitors center

admin — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 17:54:09 +0000

I’ll give a public lecture at the Goddard Visitors Center in Greenbelt, MD, on Thursday, Nov 10 at 7 PM. The event is free but space is limited, so you’ll need to pre-register. The topic is “Space Telescopes”.

It’ll be a longer version of my upcoming TEDxMidAtlantic talk.

TEDxMidAtlantic talk on Space Telescopes

admin — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 17:49:25 +0000

I gave a talk on “Space Telescopes” at TEDxMidAtlantic on Saturday, Oct 29 in Washington, DC, to an audience of ~800. I summarized key discoveries from the Hubble, Spitzer, and Chandra space observatories, and why NASA is building the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

You can watch the video of my talk.

Talk on AGN with JWST

admin — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 19:29:24 +0000

Today I gave a talk on AGN science that JWST can do, at the “Science Frontiers with JWST” workshop in Baltimore. You can watch the video.

TED Talk auditions

admin — Mon, 09 May 2011 23:43:11 +0000

Turns out I’m a finalist in TED’s Full Spectrum auditions. As a result, on the evening of May 24, I’ll give a 5 min talk in NYC that will be streamed online, and is a tryout for a full-length talk at TED 2012. My talk will be on how cool is the Hubble Space Telescope, and how the James Webb Space Telescope we’re building will be even cooler and far more capable.

NASA Goddard Open House, Sat May 15, 11am-5pm

admin — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 17:32:46 +0000

NASA Goddard is having an Open House event called “Explore @ NASA Goddard“. I’ll be giving a public talk on how astronomers go observing. The open house is free, open to everyone, and features geeky-cool events for all ages. Mark your calendars: Sat. May 15, 11am-5pm.

Who is Dr. Jane Rigby?

admin — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 23:46:51 +0000

Astrophysicist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
User of the Hubble, Spitzer, Chandra, and Herschel space observatories, as well as the Keck and Magellan observatories here on Earth.
Public speaker on astronomy, science, and diversity.
Blogger, AstroBetter.

Contact information at Goddard.

Email:

Publications on ADS.

Links to other pages.