Its namesake is James Webb, head of NASA in the 1960s who made science a top priority. Because of cost overruns, Webb was cancelled, in 2011, by the House Appropriations Committee, but it was saved in the Senate. It was to launch 7 years ago but delays come with a machine this ambitious. The promise of discovery shielded Webb on what's already been a treacherous journey. And Webb is going to allow us to observe that process of galaxy evolution in much more detail. Now, galaxies are born and then they evolve, they change over time, and this way that galaxies change must rely critically on dark matter. And Webb was specifically designed to allow us to see those very first galaxies that formed after the Big Bang. Scott Pelley: What might the Webb Telescope reveal about dark matter?Īmber Straughn: It's like we have this 14-billion-year-old story of the universe, but we're missing that first chapter.
And if there wasn't dark matter, there wouldn't be galaxies and there wouldn't be us.
It's the-the structure on which galaxies sit. Never seen, scientists infer they must exist because they're the best explanation for how galaxies form and move.Īmber Straughn: So, we know that dark matter is sort of this scaffolding of the universe. Nearly all the cosmos is made up of what physicists call, in desperation, dark matter and dark energy. That 95% -the unknown-is all around us like a ghost.
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