Topic: Galaxies & Cosmology
Invasion of the Microscopic Black Holes

Invasion of the Microscopic Black Holes

Image credit: Tech Explorist Every once in a while, a story comes along that just makes me giggle, and also forces me to fix some misinformation living in my brain. Consider the microscopic black hole. In my brain, these diminutive creations of the early universe should all have evaporated away thanks to Hawking Radiation. It turns out, however, I was thinking too small. While the tiniest of possible primordial black holes - those measuring hundreds of million tons and smaller - will indeed have evaporated away, those that are a bit bigger - say a billion metric tons or larger - should all...

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JWST Echoes the Hubble Tension

JWST Echoes the Hubble Tension

Comparison of Hubble and Webb views of a Cepheid variable star. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, A. Riess (JHU/STScI) Understanding our universe isn’t a straightforward process. For every theory that appears to be beautifully proven out by data, there is another theory...

Gaia Watches the Universe Form

Gaia Watches the Universe Form

Credit: ESA/Gaia/DPAC; Lucy Reading-Ikkanda/Simons Foundation; K. Storey-Fisher et al. 2024 In trying to understand our universe, theorists can build models that describe how the universe formed as a mostly, but not completely, smooth distribution of matter and energy...

Galactic Death may not be Permanent

Galactic Death may not be Permanent

False-colour JWST image of a small fraction of the GOODS South field, with JADES-GS-z7-01-QU highlighted. Credit: JADES Collaboration In a paper in Nature, with Tobias Looser as the first author, researchers discuss a galaxy cataloged as JADES-GS-z7-01-QU. This...

Galaxies are Born Bright

Galaxies are Born Bright

This image from Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument shows a portion of the GOODS-North field of galaxies. At the lower right, a pullout highlights the galaxy GN-z11, which is seen at a time just 430 million years after the Big Bang. One prominent...