The Margaret R. Grundy Memorial Library, 680 Radcliffe St. in Bristol, has joined almost 500 sites across the country to celebrate the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, NASA’s next great space observatory. The Grundy Library will offer a range of public programs to bring the excitement of STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and math) to children, teens and adults.
The Grundy Library’s James Webb Telescope Community Event is scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 9, at 6:30 p.m. The evening’s activities include a presentation by the Bucks-Mont Astronomical Association, making galaxy slime, NASA videos of the Webb project, and a space-themed Bingo game. Other Webb-related events happening throughout November include a Beanstack Challenge, an astronomy trivia night and storytimes.
“We are thrilled that the Grundy Library is an official host site for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope launch community events,” said library director Dana Barber. “We have partnered with the Bucks-Mont Astronomical Association (BMA2) to help our community celebrate this amazing feat of science and engineering. People of all ages and backgrounds will find inspiration in the Webb mission, which will fundamentally change our understanding of the universe for this generation and many to come.”
Webb is the largest and most complex space science telescope ever built – the premier observatory of the next decade. This international mission, led by NASA in partnership with the European and Canadian space agencies, will launch in December 2021.
The observatory will provide a new view of the cosmos and push the field of astronomy into a new era. The telescope will observe the universe in the infrared, peering inside dust clouds to study light from distant parts of the universe for the very first time – the first galaxies that formed about 13.5 billion years ago – and give us insight into how our universe formed. It will also explore distant worlds in other solar systems, as well as objects in our own solar system. Webb will extend the scientific discoveries of other NASA missions like the Hubble Space Telescope, Chandra X-ray Observatory, and Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite.
Visit grundylibrary.org or call 215-788-7891 for more information and a full schedule of events. The free virtual James Webb Telescope Community Event can be accessed via Zoom here. Visit webb.nasa.gov to learn more about the Webb telescope.
