Early Galaxies Weren’t Too Big for Their Britches After All

August 26, 2024 • by Marc Airhart

It got called the crisis in cosmology. But now astronomers can explain some surprising recent discoveries.

In the blackness of space, a bright object in the center of view is surrounded and partly obscured by a dark cloud

Artist illustration of a black hole surrounded by extremely thick clouds of gas and dust. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.


The blackness of space, sprinkled with a smattering of bright, colorful blobs

This is a small portion of the field observed by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) for the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) survey. It is filled with galaxies. The light from some of them has traveled for over 13 billion years to reach the telescope. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Steve Finkelstein (University of Texas at Austin)

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