2025's Major Physics Breakthroughs 🌌

In 2025, physicists spotted a paradigm-shifting new black hole, doubled down on weakening dark energy, and discovered that the Earth's deep interior may be more connected than previously thought, reshaping our picture of the planet’s engine. Watch this year's Biggest Breakthroughs in Mathematics: https://youtu.be/hRpcWpAeWng

0:00 - Little Red Dots
The James Webb Space Telescope has found a lonely black hole in the early universe that’s as heavy as 50 million suns. A major discovery, the object confounds theories of the young cosmos.
Read more at Quanta Magazine: https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-single-naked-black-hole-rewrites-the-history-of-the-universe-20250912/
Associated paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.21748

04:36 - Weakening Dark Energy
Last year, an enormous map of the cosmos hinted that the engine driving cosmic expansion might be sputtering. Now, physicists are back with an even bigger map, and a stronger conclusion.
Read more at Quanta Magazine: https://www.quantamagazine.org/is-dark-energy-getting-weaker-new-evidence-strengthens-the-case-20250319/
Associated paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.14738

9:51 - Geophysics of Earth's Core
Strong new evidence suggests that primordial material from the planet’s center is somehow making its way out. Continent-size entities anchored to the core-mantle boundary might be involved.
Read more at Quanta Magazine: https://www.quantamagazine.org/earths-core-appears-to-be-leaking-up-and-out-of-earths-surface-20250804/
Associated papers: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08322-y, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09003-0

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Quanta Magazine is an editorially independent publication supported by the Simons Foundation. We focus on developments in mathematics, theoretical physics, theoretical computer science and the basic life sciences.