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.
Billions of years from now, dark energy will push the rest of the Universe out of reach forever. These galaxies will be the last to go. A look at the night […]
If the Sun is 93 million miles away, why does sunlight filtering through the clouds or the trees spread out? Rays of sunshine are one of those natural sights that leave […]
A new Starts With A Bang podcast brings on an expert for an unforgettable conversation. Once a month, as part of our Patreon, we put together a podcast on a […]
The world’s greatest clockmaker sent a clock to the new world, and everything went haywire. The reason why will shock you. For millennia, humanity’s one-and-only reliable way to keep time was […]
We can’t help but wonder if it’s habitable, or even inhabited, but the evidence isn’t there for it. Every star that fills the night sky carries along with it one of […]
For 100 million years, there was only creation in the Universe. Meet our first moments of destruction. The cosmic story that gave rise to us is a story rife with […]
If all you see is low-energy light in a myriad of directions, you can’t be sure. But this light comes from the Big Bang. There are a lot of things that […]
These three reasons are why there’s no getting around the fact that astronomy needs the James Webb Space Telescope. Even the most powerful telescope in history, the Hubble Space Telescope, […]
LIGO’s enormous arms contract and expand as gravitational waves pass through them. But, puzzlingly, so does the light within them. For the past three years, humanity has known a new kind […]
A very clever idea says there’s a ninth Solar System planet, larger than Earth, far beyond Neptune. Here’s why most scientists think it’s not real. It’s been nearly three years since […]
The nightmare scenario of no new particles or interactions at the LHC is coming true. And it might be our own fault. Over at the Large Hadron Collider, protons simultaneously circle […]
Shortly after the Big Bang, the Universe became completely dark. The first stars, when they ignited, changed everything. For perhaps 100 million years, the Universe was devoid of stars. The […]
An Oxford physicist tries to cast doubt on dark energy, but the data says otherwise. It was a mere 20 years ago that our picture of the Universe got a […]
The other great spiral galaxy in the local group demonstrates why we’re #2, even in our own backyard. The Milky Way is our cosmic home, containing hundreds of billions of […]
Of all the experiments performed and measurements made involving fundamental particles, none has ever violated the Standard Model. Until now. If there’s one thing you can count on physicists for, it’s […]
Our biases, preferences, and ideas of simplicity and elegance can get in the way. Here’s a scientific way to cut through them all. What are the rules governing reality? If you […]
Every physical theory has constants in it. The gravitational constant is remarkably uncertain. When we first began formulating physical laws, we did so empirically: through experiments. Drop a ball off […]
For perhaps 100 million years, there were no stars in the Universe. What was it like then? The earliest stages of the Universe were extraordinarily eventful in bringing us about. Cosmic […]
Not everyone is satisfied with the Big Bang. But every alternative is a disastrous failure. It’s treated as though it’s an unassailable scientific truth: 13.8 billion years ago, the Universe […]
Some wildfires will always be unavoidable. But nature, thankfully, recovers relatively quickly. The past few years have brought some devastating wildfires to large parts of the American west. A wildfire […]
They make up 95% of our Universe today, but they weren’t always so important. One of the most puzzling mysteries about the Universe is simply, “where is everything?” All that […]
Dark matter is our leading theory for a reason. New, detailed studies of the smallest galaxies could kill off the most studied alternative. When you look out at the Universe, […]
One of the most popular viral videos about space is dead wrong. But it gives us a chance to learn something incredible. There are a lot of moving parts to […]
It took hundreds of thousands of years to make atoms for the first time. If things were just a little different, it could have taken an eternity. When it comes […]
Stars don’t stay the same throughout their life, and the Sun is no exception. Here’s what’s going on. Here on Earth, the ingredients for life to survive, thrive, evolve, and sustain […]
NASA’s 28-year-old workhorse is still lighting up our knowledge and imagination of the Universe. A generation ago, Hubble opened its eyes on the great cosmic abyss: viewing the depths of […]
The most massive star in the known Universe is 260 times as heavy as our Sun. But viewing the early Universe will shatter that record. Place enough mass together in one […]
Our Universe may not be all there is, was, or ever will be, after all. There’s been a lot of speculative ideas put forth about the Multiverse, and I dare say […]
We don’t need the many-worlds of quantum mechanics to have more Universes than we know what to do with. “The Universe is all there is, or was, or will be.” That […]
For the Pluto fans, another sad state of affairs: your favorite world won’t make it. Nothing on Earth lasts forever, and that’s a truth that even extends to all the objects […]