coreyspowell, 2 months ago

Priya Natarajan notes that black holes are also huge puzzles.

Did supermassive black holes help form early galaxies, or did early galaxies help form supermassive black holes? Er, maybe.

How did these monsters appear so early after the Big Bang? Unclear.

https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/black-hole-discovery/ #science #space #astronomy

coreyspowell, 2 months ago

Decades of work by Wendy Freeman and others have transformed cosmology from hand-waving into a precision science.

Now a tiny, 7% disagreement in the cosmic expansion rate is enough to provoke "tension" and possibly point us toward fascinating new physics!

https://science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasas-webb-hubble-telescopes-affirm-universes-expansion-rate-puzzle-persists/ #NASA #JWST #space #science

coreyspowell, 2 months ago

It was very cool to see three women among the five cosmologists on stage at AMNH last night.

A couple kids in the audience remarked about it appreciatively afterward. Great ideas come from everyone, everywhere.

(Photo via Mike Boylan-Kolchin) #science #representation #astronomy

AstroMikeHudson, 2 months ago

@coreyspowell Looks like Neil deGrasse Tyson taking the group selfie, since MBK has his hands by his side.

coreyspowell, 2 months ago

@AstroMikeHudson

Quite right! I mean that Mike is the one who shared the photo -- I'm not sure if it's been publicly released.