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JWST proves that black holes really do come before galaxies

The biggest chicken-and-egg question in the Universe is what came first for galaxies: black holes or stars?

A new JWST discovery gives the strongest proof yet: the answer is black holes!

It's the Universe's ultimate chicken-and-egg question: what came first, the galaxy or the black hole? One Little Red Dot proves the answer.

Gravitational wave astronomy is now a fully mature science

In 2016, LIGO announced their first gravitational wave detection.

10 years later, we've seen 390 events.

The field has now matured: a whole new way of doing astronomy.

In 2016, humanity announced our first successful gravitational wave detection. 10 years and 389 events later, here's how far we've come.

Is the USA on track to fulfill Astro2020’s decadal plan?

Five years ago, the USA released the Astro2020 decadal plan: setting the course for astronomy and astrophysics.

Halfway through the decade, here's how we're progressing (or regressing).

The Astro2020 decadal report set the USA's agenda for space and ground-based astronomy. Here in 2026, we're clearly on the wrong course.

Ask Ethan: Why does our Universe require CP-violation?

There's more matter than antimatter in the Universe, and no one knows exactly how that happened.

But CP-violation is sure to be a key; here's what's so important about it.

Two discrete symmetries, charge conjugation and parity, must be violated together for our Universe to exist. We haven't found enough of it.

Yes, scientists can be hostile to new ideas. So should you

Have you ever presented a new scientific idea, only to have it dismissed or dunked on by an actual scientist.

There's a good reason for that, and they're probably in the right.

Many people out there, including scientists, claim to have discovered a series of game-changing revolutions. Here's why we don't buy it.

Science’s three big hopes for finding alien life

One of humanity's biggest hopes (and fears) is to find evidence of life beyond Earth.

We now have three scientific methods for seeking it, with one likely to pay off soon.

Despite all that we've discovered, Earth remains the only planet definitively known to possess life. Here's how to find a second example.

CERN to lead particle physics throughout the 21st century

The CERN Council has selected the Future Circular Collider as their next-generation plan for particle physics.

Fundamental science still has a chance in the 21st century.

CERN's Large Hadron Collider superseded Fermilab's TeVatron in 2008, but now nears the end of its run. The ambitious FCC project comes next.

Ask Ethan: What do surveys of physicists actually reveal?

A recent survey of physicists was conducted by the American Physical Society.

We learned a lot about their arrogance and willingness to opine, but about nature?

Not so much.

At and beyond the current frontiers of knowledge, many physicists have strongly held opinions. Can surveys point the way to breakthroughs?

Space wasn’t infinitely small when the hot Big Bang began

There's a minimum size that space could've been "compressed into" at the start of the hot Big Bang.

Not a singularity, not soccer ball sized, but human hamster-ball sized.

The original idea of the Big Bang was synonymous with a singularity: a point of zero volume. In this Universe, things never got that small.

Why the tooth fairy is important for theoretical physics

Theoretical physicists often explore wild, unusual ideas when confronting the mysteries of nature.

You can even invoke the Tooth Fairy if you like, but only once.

Here's why.

Theoretical physics is notorious for wild ideas that seem, at first, to be nonsensical fantasies. That's where the tooth fairy comes in.

Why “galactic archaeology” is not archaeology at all

There's a science for studying the assembly, history, and evolution of our galaxy.

Infrared astronomy has taught us so much, but calling it "galactic archaeology" is too much.

Astronomers study our cosmic history through stellar and galactic archaeology. But we can't conduct archaeology in space. At least, not yet.

Less of the night sky is visible than ever before

NASA's Black Marble project measures artificial lighting at night.

From 2014-2022, things got 34% brighter.

And now over 80% of humanity can't even see the Milky Way at night.

Light pollution now steals a pristine night sky from the majority of humanity. The rise of LED lighting, primarily since 2014, is to blame.

Ask Ethan: Is the Universe the same age everywhere?

Does our 13.8 billion year figure for the Universe's age apply to any observer anywhere as far as "now" goes?

Several scientific effects say otherwise, but quantitatively, not by much.

Today, in the here-and-now, a full 13.8 billion years have elapsed since the start of the hot Big Bang. But would that be true for everyone?

What physics gets wrong about the idea of “fundamental”

"Fundamental" in physics usually just means the smallest indivisible quanta plus the laws that govern them.

But we wouldn't get far without something more: boundary/initial conditions.

In physics, we reduce things to their elementary, fundamental components, and build emergent things out of them. That's not the full story.

Cosmic beacon unveiled inside nearby active galaxy by JWST

Just 45 million light-years away lies galaxy Messier 77.

It has an active black hole, it's rapidly forming stars, it's bigger than the Milky Way, and JWST just viewed it.

Wow!

Messier 77 is one of the largest nearby spiral galaxies, with an active, brilliant core. Here's what JWST's incomparable eyes saw inside it.

The discovery of an atmosphere on a tiny Kuiper belt world

Pluto's atmosphere was discovered in 1988, during a stellar occultation.

Only now are we discovering a second Kuiper belt object with an atmosphere, and wow, is it a surprise.

A relatively tiny world in the Kuiper belt, just 500 km in diameter, has an atmosphere after all, joining Pluto. Here's what we know today.

A brief history of the cosmic distance record

The cosmic distance record has grown, in just a few hundred years, from millions of light-years to over 30 billion light-years.

Here's a look back at our history of ever-receding horizons.

Only nearby objects appear to the naked eye. With telescopes of all types, especially in space, we've smashed those records many times over.

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