Marcia J. Rieke

University of Arizona

Research field

Infrared astronomy and instrumentation

Marcia Rieke is the principal investigator of NIRCam, the near infrared camera of the James Webb Space Telescope. The featured paper reports that the camera met or exceeded its design goals in space: its detectors add only a few electrons of noise, and its long exposures are limited by the faint sky background. NIRCam images were also used to align the 18 segments of the telescope's mirror. The unit presents the camera as a worked case of diffraction-limited imaging and of the signal to noise equation.

In the masterclass

Section 5 presents NIRCam after the physics of diffraction (Section 2) and detector noise (Section 4) on which its design rests.

The research is presented in Unit 4: Telescopes and Observational Techniques, in a research spotlight box that explains the result at the level of the unit and links it to the physics you have just learned.

The paper

Performance of NIRCam on JWST in Flight