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Ethan Siegel
A theoretical astrophysicist and science writer, host of popular podcast “Starts with a Bang!”
Ethan Siegel is a Ph.D. astrophysicist and author of "Starts with a Bang!" He is a science communicator, who professes physics and astronomy at various colleges. He has won numerous awards for science writing since 2008 for his blog, including the award for best science blog by the Institute of Physics. His two books "Treknology: The Science of Star Trek from Tricorders to Warp Drive" and "Beyond the Galaxy: How humanity looked beyond our Milky Way and discovered the entire Universe" are available for purchase at Amazon. Follow him on Twitter @startswithabang.
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Ever hear of Hawking radiation? Or the black hole information paradox? Time to get your fix! In memory of Stephen Hawking’s life, I’ve decided to share the physics behind his greatest […]
In 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope was launched, leading to a revolution in astronomy. But for many purposes, Earth is still the best place to be. When you think about what’s […]
Spoiler: it isn’t the end of the Universe, and it’s not likely to lead to new evidence for the Multiverse, either. On March 14, 2018, the most famous and celebrated […]
In 2016, the number of opioid-related deaths hit 42,000, an all-time record. But gun deaths were nearly that same number, and have been consistently that high. If you want to know […]
With hundreds of billions of stars burning bright, ‘dead’ seems like a bit of an exaggeration. But every galaxy is headed for this fate, including ours. As long as a […]
We know that it’s ‘the red planet’ because of the iron in its soil. But why, with such a thin, carbon dioxide atmosphere, is the martian sky so red and bright? […]
Before Hawking, black holes were just static points in the background of space. His greatest scientific legacy taught us just how dynamic they are. In 1915, Albert Einstein published his General […]
If it were, we wouldn’t be here. But there’s a scientific answer that’s been spectacularly confirmed. When we examine our Universe, looking out at the planets, stars, galaxies, and vast […]
Even our scientific heroes can’t be right about everything. Let’s learn the lessons that they never did. In the 1960s, a young theoretical physicist named Stephen Hawking rose to prominence as […]
For every planet that orbits a star like our own, there are likely thousands of ‘orphan planets’ wandering the galaxy alone. Here in the Solar System, we can watch our star’s […]
It’s time to bust one of the biggest myths about where the night sky’s most spectacular, seasonal shows come from. Meteor showers are one of the night sky’s most spectacular sights […]
They seem almost indistinguishable in some regards, but only one of them represents our physical Universe. When it comes to describing the physical world, we can do it anecdotally, as […]
The past is gone, the future not yet here, only the present is now. But why does it always flow the way it does for us? Every moment that passes finds […]
One of the three basic circuit elements just got a lot smaller for the very first time, in what promises to be a trillion-dollar breakthrough. In the race for ever-improving […]
Most stars obey very similar rules, making them almost entirely predictable. But then, there are the weirdos. Catch this live-blog event to learn more. When we look out at the Universe […]
There have been a lot of public advocates from the “no dark matter” camp, getting lots of popular attention. But the Universe still needs dark matter. Here’s why. If you took […]
For most of us, it’s something we just accept every year. But there’s arguably no good that comes from it. Every year on the second Sunday in March, most places in […]
We always assume that dark matter is particle-based, and we just need to find which particle it is. But what if it isn’t so? Everything we’ve ever detected in the Universe, […]
And super-Earth, mini-Neptunes, and super-Jupiters aren’t among them. You’ll be surprised to learn why. Just 30 years ago, if you had asked an astronomer if there were planets around other stars […]
The possibilities were almost limitless, so why does everything line up? Our Solar System is an orderly place, with the four inner planets, the asteroid belt, and the gas giant worlds […]