Pascal Oesch

Pascal Oesch is an Assistant Professor of Astronomy at the University of Geneva. He and his colleagues discovered a distant galaxy called GN-z11 which was, for half a decade, the oldest and most distant galaxy known. (“GN” stands for "Goods North” - the field of view of the Hubble Space Telescope within which the galaxy was found.) Now he’s working with the James Webb Space Telescope and already finding even older and more distant galaxies. In this conversation Pascal explains how GN-z11 was found, why it’s important to study galaxy formation, and reveals his personal excitement at pushing the boundaries of what’s known.