Chapter 1 · July 2026
The cosmos awakens: scale, tools, and the open mysteries
Scale and wonder
Our Sun is one of about 100 billion stars in the Milky Way, itself just one of an estimated 100–200 billion galaxies; light from the most distant of them has traveled over 13 billion years to reach us, so we see them as they were when the universe was young.
Tools of discovery
The James Webb Space Telescope, 1.5 million km from Earth, studies every phase of cosmic history and in 2026 pinpointed millions of stars inside the Cigar Galaxy and helped trace the origin of an interstellar comet.
The new Vera C. Rubin Observatory, carrying the largest digital camera ever built, is set to survey the whole southern sky repeatedly.Near and far
NASA's Artemis program is preparing humanity's return to the Moon, with a crewed lunar landing targeted for later this decade, while on Mars the Perseverance rover began its first AI-guided autonomous drives.
The enduring mysteries
Dark matter makes up about 85% of all matter yet has never been directly seen, and dark energy — driving the universe's accelerating expansion — is more mysterious still. These unknowns remain the biggest open questions in physics.