I'm a total geek when it comes to origin of the universe science. Although we can reliably estimate the age of the observable universe at ~14B years, I've always felt that the universe must be eternal with no discreet date of origin. I like Hawking's no boundary proposal as part of a more complete origin hypothesis. Now, early data from the Webb telescope suggests there are too many and too mature galaxies in the early days after the big bang to be explained by the current standard model. Will be interesting to see if these data hold up!
I'm a similar geek. All this not knowing depresses me. It will be thousands of years, if then, and if Home sapiens don't go extinct, before we have a complete understanding why there is something rather than nothing, and how that is.
I always wonder how much filter and spectrum manipulation goes into those pictures? Stunning nevertheless.
