A lot of that is due to massive increases in our capabilities in astronomy. The '90s saw the advent of proper space telescopes, a whole slew of new giant ground based telescopes, and instrumentation that had gotten better by leaps and bounds. That was followed by new kinds of instruments becoming more common (infrared and x-ray telescopes, dedicated planet hunting telescopes) along with a rolling wave of new discoveries in astronomy, cosmology, and astrophysics (measuring the age of the universe precisely, detecting the acceleration of the universe, nailing down the energy and matter composition of the universe, detecting exoplanets, detecting colliding black holes and then neutron stars, etc.)
Today the field is in a state where technology and expertise is at a mature enough level to where certain capabilities are increasing rapidly year over year which has meant that new questions and new fields of study keep piling up even as old questions get answered. This is definitely an exciting time to be alive if you care about this sort of stuff. When I was a kid the error margins on the age of the Universe were laughably large, now they are a fraction of a percent.
Today the field is in a state where technology and expertise is at a mature enough level to where certain capabilities are increasing rapidly year over year which has meant that new questions and new fields of study keep piling up even as old questions get answered. This is definitely an exciting time to be alive if you care about this sort of stuff. When I was a kid the error margins on the age of the Universe were laughably large, now they are a fraction of a percent.