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How will the Webb Telescope
teach us about our origins?

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How can we better use our
knowledge of galaxy formation

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and star birth to better
understand our beginnings?

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See those blue galaxies
in this picture taken

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by the Hubble Space Telescope?

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Those are star
factories, making stars

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at a much faster rate
than the red ones.

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Webb can track the production
of the heavier stellar elements

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in ways that no previous
telescope could.

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Webb's infrared eyes
can see through the dust

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in the galaxies, to
more clearly study

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the formation of new stars.

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While stars within the
galaxies are spread out,

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the galaxies themselves
tend to clump

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in nodes where gravity
draws matter together.

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Galaxies are connected
to each other

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by web-like strands of
gas and dark matter.

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Galaxies most often form
where the dark matter

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strands intersect.

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This cosmic web
is the scaffolding

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that supports galaxy formation.

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Dark matter is five times more
abundant than visible matter

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in the universe.

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Astronomers have simulated
the spider web of dark matter

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by using the visible
distribution of galaxies today.

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But Webb will allow us to see
farther into the distant past,

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to galaxies just after
they were first born.

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During this earlier time, the
universe was hotter and denser,

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and many more stars formed
in the early generations

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of galaxies.

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We're already late to the party.

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The best time for making stars
was about 10 billion years ago.

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With Webb, we can look back
to the early days of galaxies

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and stars, and follow
the trail of clues

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to understand the formation
of these heavy elements.

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Carbon, oxygen, nitrogen,
silicon, and others that

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make life possible today.

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Webb will also allow us
to study the collision

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of early galaxies,
and give us new clues

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about the invisible but
dominant dark matter

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in the early universe.

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And maybe one of those spirals
out there in the distance, back

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in time about 10
billion years, could

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be a mirror image of our own
Milky Way looking back at us.

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