OUR Athena becomes from today the world capital of astronomy, and although only a few 24 hours have passed since the day when photographs of the James Webb telescope thanks to which we have known the farthest corners of the universe.

OUR 44th General Assembly of the International Committee for Space Researchor otherwise Cospar 2022is of particular interest not only to the elite of space research, which will gather in Athens, but also to the general public.

As he also states to the Athens Agency about Stamatis CrimisisPresident of the scientific organizing committee of the conference, the first scientific presentation of James Webb’s research will take place in Athens.

There will also be a popular presentation of the material John MatherNobel laureate and head of the space telescope program.

If I tell you a little about the backstory, you will understand that there may not be so much of it. Head of Science Programs at NASA, who was in charge of launch planning, Thomas Zurbuchen. I know him well, I was his mentor at NASA. I have every reason to believe that he took into account the timing of the conference.

Of course, there was no certainty that these two events would coincide. If any of the steps went wrong, the time frame will be different. Let’s not forget that according to the initial estimate, the first images should have been released in August. But they gave 12 July. And here in Athens for the first time there will be a scientific presentation of the research of James Webb.

What made a huge impression on me was that since this telescope has the ability to look at the spectrum of radiation and therefore can pick up lines corresponding to different elements, we learned that elements such as oxygen, neon, hydrogen and nitrogen, have existed since the big bang, the great bang that created the universe. The second and most important thing is that he did spectroscopy on one of the exoplanets and found water vapor in the atmosphere there. This is extremely important as it shows that water is a key component of many exoplanets. Imagine that until now we could not even see the atmosphere. But now we can and do measure what is in the atmosphere.

The information we got from the Hubbor Space Telescope was that the universe spans 13.8 billion light years. We are now waiting for more information from James Webb, he can give us some other timings. In science, you know, there are no opinions, there are proofs. Of course, we have models and theories, but theories are just theories, and if they are not confirmed, they do not survive as theories. If we can expect anything in the coming years, it will be new discoveries that will exactly destroy many of the theories we have formulated today.

This opens up a very big discussion. If you ask a theorist, he will tell you that there was no time before the Big Bang. But we, experimenters, it does not concern.

You know, 30 years ago, when we were developing the concept of planetary exploration, our motto was to follow the water. Many assumptions have been made, but nothing is valid until proven.

This is a city located in the center, not on the periphery of science. Moreover, almost all programs involve Greeks from the Diaspora. I’ll leave the rest for greetings at the reception of the conference.

RES – OIE