At the 246th American Astronomical Society meeting in Alaska last month, scientists discussed how Trump's budget cuts could affect operations for the Hubble Space Telescope and JWST.
Research shows that modern disk galaxies have two overall components: a thin disk containing higher-metallicity young stars, and a thick disk containing lower-metallicity older stars. The thin disk sits inside the thick disk. Astronomers are trying to understand how these parts form and how disk galaxies evolve. To make progress, astronomers need to observe edge-on rather than face-on galaxies. They also need to observe them in the past, something that the JWST is built to do.
