A special program of the 2022 Tencent Science WE Summit – International Deep Space Dialogue – was held online on Thursday evening.

Four scientists from China and the United States and an astronomy enthusiast had a dialogue and shared the latest discoveries in astronomy in their fields based on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the Chinese Space Station Telescope (CSST).

The JWST, a 6.5-meter-diameter telescope, was launched on December 25, 2021. It is an international program led by NASA with the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency. Webb is used to observe stars, galaxies and black holes in the universe.

John Mather, senior project scientist for the JWST, said that it was "quite challenging" for them to build the telescope, and they developed 10 new technologies, including technologies on focusing the telescope and creating new kinds of infrared detectors, for the telescope.

He introduced how scientists study black holes, dark matter and dark energy with Webb, shared with some new discoveries and said that a new one, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, would be launched by NASA afterwards.

Zhan Hu, project scientist for the optical facility of the Chinese Space Station Telescope (CSST) introduced the advantages of the CSST – a larger field of view to better observe the universe.

The CSST is a space-based optical observatory for astronomers to carry out sky surveys, capturing a general map or images of the sky. It is slated to be launched at the end of 2023.

Zhan said that he believed this telescope, together with other telescopes, would provide "extremely rich datasets for potential breakthroughs in studies of the solar system all the way to the remote universe" in the future.

Deng Dafu, deputy general manager of Tencent's Interactive Entertainment Group, shared how artificial intelligence helped his project, the Chasing All Transients Constellation Hunters (CATCH).

Deng said that CATCH would be a fleet of smart satellites, which will be carried out to follow and observe multiple space phenomena such as black holes, neutron stars and gamma ray bursts.

The 2022 Tencent Science We Summit will be held on Sunday.

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Watch: Dialogue with Deep Space Exploration Scientists from WE Summit