Launching satellites from Earth is counter-productive. You’ve got to make a satellite that can handle Earth gravity, then the brutal flight to space, then deployment in orbit. What if you could build your spacecraft in space?
![Ep. 685: Manufacturing in Space](https://www.astronomycast.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Future_Moon_base-1-1080x675.jpg)
Fraser Cain
Universe Today
Dr. Pamela Gay
CosmoQuest
Launching satellites from Earth is counter-productive. You’ve got to make a satellite that can handle Earth gravity, then the brutal flight to space, then deployment in orbit. What if you could build your spacecraft in space?
One of JWST’s top jobs is to peer deeper into the Universe than ever before, watching as the first galaxies came together. Surprisingly, astronomers found galaxies that seemed much more mature than expected, much earlier than it was believed possible. What’s going on and what does it mean for cosmology?
After the cosmic microwave background radiation was released, the Universe returned to darkness, cloaked in this clouds of primordial hydrogen and helium. Gravity pulled these vast clouds into the first stars, and then the first galaxies. This is Cosmic Dawn, and JWST will help us probe this mysterious time.
Astronomers first noticed the strange behaviors of rotating galaxies almost 100 years ago, suggesting there’s an invisible dark matter hold them together with gravity. Or maybe we just don’t understand how gravity works at the largest scales. Observations are much better now, and astronomers have found examples of galaxies that almost entirely made of dark matter. Does this tell us anything?
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