Wonders Without, Wonders Within

As humanity peers ever further into the cosmos, the similarities and differences between our universe and our inner workings emerge.

Written byBob Grant

| 4 min read

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Arguably, the biggest science development of the year to date has been the gobsmacking images of the very depths of the universe beaming back to Earth from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Looking at those new infrared images of galaxies, flung millions of light years across the heavens, and comparing them to previous, commendable but limited efforts by the Hubble Space Telescope and others, one almost gets the sense that humanity has been able to wipe the lens of our shared window to the cosmos and see into it more deeply and clearly than ever before. Even the most casual, armchair cosmologist can appreciate the astounding observational strides made by scientists thanks to the space-piercing gaze of the JWST.

At least for this armchair cosmologist, the unprecedented detail of those images also begs a comparison between the external and internal universes that science is bent on observing and understanding. ...

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Meet the Author

Bob Grant
From 2017 to 2022, Bob Grant was Editor in Chief of The Scientist, where he started in 2007 as a Staff Writer. Before joining the team, he worked as a reporter at Audubon and earned a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University. In his previous life, he pursued a career in science, getting a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Montana State University and a master’s degree in marine biology from the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Bob edited Reading Frames and other sections of the magazine.
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