13.8 billion years.
How did we get here?

Gravity Seems Holographic. What Does That Mean for Reality? — The most far-reaching idea in modern theoretical physics — that gravity collapses the dimensions of space itself — is gaining new experimental traction, and physicists are only beginning to grapple with what it means for the nature of reality.

Black Holes or Black Hole Stars? Astronomers Spar Over Webb Telescope's 'Little Red Dots' — The James Webb Space Telescope keeps spotting mysterious crimson pinpoints at cosmic distances, and a bold new hypothesis proposes they aren't supermassive black holes at all — but stars dozens of times larger than our entire solar system.

NASA & Department of Energy Advance Next-Generation Nuclear-Powered Deep Space Exploration — In a joint announcement this week, NASA and the U.S. DOE revealed accelerated development of safe, high-powered nuclear systems that could cut travel time to Mars and beyond — a genuine step toward interplanetary propulsion that chemical rockets simply cannot deliver.

NASA Previews Its Role in JAXA's Martian Moons eXploration Mission — Launching soon, the MMX spacecraft will visit Phobos and Deimos — Mars's two tiny, enigmatic moons — and attempt to return a sample from Phobos, potentially answering whether these odd worlds are captured asteroids or debris from an ancient Martian impact.

NASA Selects New Science Investigations for a Permanent Moon Base — Three new lunar science payload suites — including experiments designed to study the Moon's subsurface and the radiation environment at the poles — were greenlit this week as part of NASA's push to establish a long-term human presence on the lunar surface.