One of a telescope operator’s primary jobs is to keep any stray light out of the instrument. Earthly and other unwelcome photons can swamp the cosmic light from distant stars and galaxies. During more than a decade as a project scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope, Jane Rigby obsessed over minimizing light leaks — with extraordinary success. The sky looks darker to JWST than most anyone had hoped.
“I remember the light in her eyes,” says astrophysicist Jane Charlton, who met Rigby the summer before her freshman year at Penn State and later advised her research. “Jane had incredible grades, but that’s not necessarily what I look for. The love of astronomy, and passion for that, is what I look for.”
Nearly three decades later, Rigby’s palpable joy in discussing the success of JWST, which launched on December 25, 2021, has made her one of the public faces of the telescope. She presented the telescope’s first images at the White House and has given keynote speeches at some of the biggest astronomy meetings (SN: 8/13/22, p. 30). During public appearances, she often wears JWST-themed socks, scarves and pins. “I have JWST socks for pretty much every day of the week,” she says.
She has also lit a path for queer astronomers, as well as others who are historically underrepresented in astronomy. Rigby has been out as part of the LGBTQ+ community since 2000, when she met her now-wife when they were both astronomy graduate students at the University of Arizona in Tucson. She has devoted much of her career to holding the door open for others.
2023-08-10 06:00:00
Post from www.sciencenews.org
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