How will the Webb Telescope teach us about our origins?
How can we better use our knowledge of galaxy formation
and star birth to better understand our beginnings?
See those blue galaxies in this picture taken
by the Hubble Space Telescope?
Those are star factories, making stars
at a much faster rate than the red ones.
Webb can track the production of the heavier stellar elements
in ways that no previous telescope could.
Webb's infrared eyes can see through the dust
in the galaxies, to more clearly study
the formation of new stars.
While stars within the galaxies are spread out,
the galaxies themselves tend to clump
in nodes where gravity draws matter together.
Galaxies are connected to each other
by web-like strands of gas and dark matter.
Galaxies most often form where the dark matter
strands intersect.
This cosmic web is the scaffolding
that supports galaxy formation.
Dark matter is five times more abundant than visible matter
in the universe.
Astronomers have simulated the spider web of dark matter
by using the visible distribution of galaxies today.
But Webb will allow us to see farther into the distant past,
to galaxies just after they were first born.
During this earlier time, the universe was hotter and denser,
and many more stars formed in the early generations
of galaxies.
We're already late to the party.
The best time for making stars was about 10 billion years ago.
With Webb, we can look back to the early days of galaxies
and stars, and follow the trail of clues
to understand the formation of these heavy elements.
Carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, silicon, and others that
make life possible today.
Webb will also allow us to study the collision
of early galaxies, and give us new clues
about the invisible but dominant dark matter
in the early universe.
And maybe one of those spirals out there in the distance, back
in time about 10 billion years, could
be a mirror image of our own Milky Way looking back at us.