Behind the Research: Western looks at the final frontier 

President Alan Shepard in conversation with professors Sarah Gallagher and Jan Cami on Canada's role in space exploration and research The Canadian Space Agency views space as a national asset for Canada. In the past year, researchers at Western have contributed to research ranging from interpreting some of the first images from the James Webb Space Telescope , and hosting the Space as a National Asset for Canada conference , to constructing the CubeSat Ukpik-1 - launched by SpaceX in July 2023 - and detecting for the first time ever a molecule known as the methyl cation (CH3+) in matter surrounding a young star. President Alan Shepard recently sat down with two astrophysicists - Sarah Gallagher, director of the Institute of Space and Earth Exploration (Western Space) and Jan Cami, director of the Cronyn Observatory, for an engaging discussion about understanding our place in the universe to the power of the James Webb images and AI's impact on space exploration. Alan Shepard: How would you describe the work of astronomers? Sarah Gallagher: We're trying to understand what is going on in the universe, really far away. When you look at something, you're  almost always looking at a snapshot. Just a moment in time. So if you want to understand how things change over time, you have to look farther back in time and try to understand what the story is.