Starts With A Bang — February 28, 2016

New Podcast: LIGO and Gravitational Waves

Travel the universe with Dr. Ethan Siegel as he answers the biggest questions of all

In February of 2016, less than six months after first becoming operational, LIGO (the laser interferometer gravitational wave observatory) announced the first-ever direct detection of gravitational waves. What are they? What does it mean? What did we learn? And what can we do with them now that we know they exist?

All this and more on this month’s Starts With A Bang podcast!

Travel the universe with Dr. Ethan Siegel as he answers the biggest questions of all

Bright cosmic explosion with flames and smoke surrounded by stars against a dark, starry background.

Starts With A Bang

Starts With A Bang podcast #111 – Black hole jets

Black holes are the most massive individual objects, spanning up to a light-day across. So how do they make jets that affect the cosmic web?

Starts With A Bang

Infinite Cosmos: The inside story behind JWST

National Geographic’s first James Webb Space Telescope book shows us the cosmos like never before.

Two observatory domes under a starry night sky, with the Milky Way visible, form a stunning backdrop as an optical interferometer captures the universe's secrets.

Starts With A Bang

Starts With A Bang podcast #110 – Optical Interferometry

Interferometry gave us a black hole’s event horizon, but that was in the radio. What can we accomplish with a new optical interferometer?

Two breathtaking pictures of a galaxy and a star taken by the Hubble telescope, highlighting the beauty and cosmic magnitude that fuels the Hubble tension.

Starts With A Bang

10 insights about the expanding Universe from a Nobel Laureate

In the expanding Universe, different ways of measuring its rate give incompatible answers. Nobel Laureate Adam Riess explains what it means.

A detailed image of two galaxies in space, one with spiral arms on the left and the other, more elliptical, on the right, surrounded by distant stars.

Starts With A Bang

Starts With A Bang Podcast #109 – Launching a galactic cone

Galactic activity doesn’t just arrive when supermassive black holes feast on matter. Before, during, and after all create fascinating signs.

Up Next

How WhatsApp Provided Early Warning for the Zika Outbreak

Infectious disease doctors in Brazil — as well as mothers of infants born with microcephaly — are using WhatsApp to diagnose and cope with the Zika-caused illness.