It's really essential to study our own solar system because that's
sort of what we’re comparing all the other planets around other stars to.
We had to make sure this highly sensitive, huge
telescope that’s designed to detect the first stars and galaxies across the universe
could actually look at the biggest and brightest things in the solar system that are also
moving at very fast rates of motion. So it was my role to help establish
moving target tracking for all these small bodies in the solar system.
My science goal for JWST involves the
entire solar system. So observing everything from near Earth
object to giant planets and their satellites, icy worlds,
Europa and Enceladus, things that have plumes and we suspect
oceans under their surface, to the farthest reaches of the solar
system, so things like trans-Neptunian objects or Kuiper Belt objects
even Pluto and its satellites.
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