On Christmas day 2021, the global community of astronomers celebrated the long-awaited launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). It’s superior sensitivity, resolution and wavelength coverage opened up a discovery space to learn about the earliest phases of galaxy formation and supermassive black hole growth.
New observations revealed a young Universe in which stars formed with a surprisingly high efficiency, black holes grew at an unanticipated pace, and galactic structures matured rapidly. These findings have sent galaxy formation theorists back to the drawing board. At the same time, state-of-the-art instrumentation on large ground-based telescopes offers invaluable complementary insights, capturing the motions of gas, tracing the imprint of dark matter, and charting the emergence of the largest cosmic structures. And yet more powerful observing facilities are about to see first light. Stijn presented an overview of the rapidly evolving landscape of galaxy formation studies, the hottest questions presently debated, and a glimpse of what more is on the horizon.
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