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.
Out of five vital questions, which one should we most desire the answer to? Despite all we’ve learned about physics, science, and the Universe before us, there are still some incredibly […]
What does science have to say about the biggest questions about existence of all? Find out on our new Starts With A Bang podcast. Ever wonder about the biggest questions that […]
The President laid out his ambition, but no money to fund it. It’s a classic Trump move, and a recipe for failure. Last week, President Trump signed Space Policy Directive 1, […]
All of this has happened before… but not like this! As the year draws to a close, we approach a very special time of year, at least from an astronomical perspective. […]
Today, our visible Universe contains 2 trillion galaxies, each with billions of stars. But when did the very first one appear? When we look out at our Universe today, there are […]
It isn’t the Big Bang or stars like the Sun that gave rise to us. The story is far more… explosive. At the smallest level, the human body is made […]
Do these five experiments right in your own living room, and explore some of the most baffling phenomena in all of nature. It’s a revolutionary idea that the Universe is made […]
The ‘big discovery’ is nothing of the kind. We need a new planet-finding mission to probe the next frontier. Last week, NASA dropped a bombshell that it’s Kepler mission — the greatest […]
Those awful almost-changes they made? They could have avoided the whole problem by simply doing the math. Designed for artists, writers, and creatives* of all different persuasions, Patreon has become a […]
If you haven’t finished your holiday shopping yet, consider these 10 gifts, good any time of year! One of the hardest things when it comes to holiday shopping is to find […]
We’ve come so far since 2015; what do we know about dark matter now that we didn’t know then? Back in 2015, the dark matter situation was pretty straightforward: the large-scale […]
How do you get so massive so fast? The answer could be a big problem for our standard picture of cosmology. Out in the extreme distances of the Universe, the […]
Instead of nearly-circular ellipses, comets are extraordinarily elongated, or even on an exit path. Why so different? When you look at how the planets orbit in our Solar System, the […]
If December’s best natural sky show seems to get better every year, it isn’t your imagination. It’s science, and it’s spectacular! Every year, the Earth travels some 940 million kilometers […]
Think we’ll just responsibly choose more fuel efficient vehicles, and the market will take care of the rest? Good luck with that. Since the first oil crisis of the 1970s, there […]
Would you work at a job that didn’t treat you like a professional? No wonder public education drove their best teachers away. The ultimate dream of public education is incredibly simple. […]
Dark matter, dark energy, and why there’s more matter than antimatter? There’s an experiment to explore if neutrinos could solve all three. When you take a look at the Universe in […]
Sometimes, you look in a nearby galaxy, and what you find beyond it will change everything. Einstein’s theory of General Relativity has withstood every test for more than a century. […]
There’s so much that we’ve discovered, looking as deeply as possible into the void. But what are we missing? Start with the laws of physics, a Universe full of a specific […]
It isn’t flat, and these simple observations that you can make from the ground can demonstrate it to anyone. From any one location on the surface of the Earth, it’s impossible […]
Just because it isn’t Thanksgiving anymore doesn’t mean we don’t have an entire Universe to be thankful for. Every day, we have a choice whether we take our lives, our existence, […]
Science can do a whole lot of things, but proving a scientific theory is still an impossibility. You’ve heard of our greatest scientific theories: the theory of evolution, the Big […]
You don’t have to wait for 2018 to know that it likely won’t be a year with 25+ magnitude 7.0 earthquakes. A new story based on a fascinating scientific paper […]
Thanks to NASA’s HiRISE camera, prepare to see Mars in a whole new light. Twelve years ago, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter launched. The descent of Mars Science Laboratory (i.e., the Curiosity […]
If you can’t explain the astrophysical signal that you see and cry ‘dark matter,’ chances are you’re not thinking hard enough. Despite our knowledge of the laws of physics, and the […]
A new look at the intertwined lives of two of the 20th century’s greatest minds. In the years prior to World War II, physics was in an odd, post-revolutionary state. Quantum […]
As wonderful as the evidence that supports or invalidates a theory is, it can never truly kill the ones that don’t work out. When it comes to science, we like to […]
If atmospheric hazes can cool the distant ice dwarf by an extra 30 degrees Celsius, maybe we can geoengineer a solution to our warming problem? When NASA’s New Horizons flew by […]
And you don’t even need a Delorean at 88 MPH. It’s one of the greatest tropes in movies, literature, and television shows: the idea that we could travel back in time […]
It’s more than the Spore Drive, it’s about the heart of science fiction. If you’ve been following Star Trek: Discovery, you knew what we were headed for going into the mid-season […]