Arizona Illustrated

Making of the James Webb Space Telescope: In December, NASA will launch the James Webb Space Telescope into a deep orbit with the Sun, nearly a million miles from the Earth. It will be the most ambitious telescope ever made, and successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. With a mirror three times larger than Hubble, it will be capable of resolving images crisper and deeper into the cosmos than before - possibly even catching a glimpse of the first galaxies to form after the Big Bang. World-renowned husband-and-wife research team Marcia and George Rieke at the University of Arizona, who spent nearly two decades working on the telescope’s instruments, discuss the mission and its impact. Herbarium: A herbarium is a collection of preserved plant specimens, some hundreds of years old, used for scientific study. We go inside the herbarium at the University of Arizona, founded in 1891, and look at the collection of nearly half a million dried plant specimens. Carlos: For Carlos Valenzuela art is a family tradition and a lifelong obsession. At a young age, he learned from his mother that if you could make something with your hand and endow it with enough love that you could feed your children,” and that’s what he’s been doing most of his life. The community educator and glass and tile artist had helped facilitate the creation of hundreds of mosaic tile murals across Southern Arizona with local youth. These murals, which are nearly ubiquitous in South Tucson and New Pascua, reflect community heritage, cultural values, and history so deeply that they have become symbols of the community in and of themselves.