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.
If we were in a place like the Coma Cluster instead of the Local Group, we’d already be dead. In a living spiral galaxy, like the Milky Way, the rich gas […]
Our motion through space is undeniable. So why can’t we feel it? Our planet isn’t the stationary place we feel it to be beneath our feet, but rather moves in an […]
When two different techniques give two different results, either someone is wrong, or something incredible is happening. Imagine you were a scientist attempting to measure some property of the Universe. […]
A new study claims that dark energy is changing with time. Here’s what it would mean, if true. For the past generation, we’ve recognized that our Universe is a particularly dark […]
Weather isn’t climate. The President isn’t a scientist. And physics is still real. The country is freezing in an unprecedented fashion, and global warming is to blame. Sound crazy? The cold […]
Not building one means giving up on brute force. We’re not yet ready to do that. There’s a problem with the field of high-energy physics, and it’s the biggest one imaginable. […]
Only 8 worlds make the astronomical cut as planets. Here are the 10 fascinating bodies that didn’t make it. Astronomically, bodies within the Solar System must achieve three criteria in order […]
LIGO, here on Earth, has exquisitely-precise distances its lasers travel. With three spacecrafts in motion, how could LISA work? Since it began operating in 2015, advanced LIGO has ushered in an […]
Although the great Martian dust storm of 2018 may have ended its life, its accomplishments will live on forever. Note: This article was originally published on January 25, 2019 on Forbes. […]
The Boomerang Nebula, in our galaxy, is even colder than completely empty space. Here’s how that’s possible. Imagine the coldest place you possibly can. Inside it, the particles that make […]
All the other planets have craters, icecaps, clouds, or a rich, banded structure. But not Uranus. The eight major planets of the Solar System all possess their own unique features. The […]
We’d never flown past or imaged a small, isolated Kuiper belt object before. Here’s what we know so far. As 2018 ended and 2019 began, NASA’s New Horizons flew past its […]
Whether you caught or missed the eclipse of January 20/21, 2019, here’s what you need to know for all the ones you’ll ever view again. On January 20/21, 2019, a very […]
Our Universe is full of surprises. This latest one, AT2018cow, has ignited a controversy between astronomers. The Universe is an ever-changing place, particularly if you look at it on long-enough […]
A rare, ultra-diffuse galaxy is full of stars and not much else. Here’s how to make sense of it. One of the greatest puzzles in the entire Universe is the dark […]
The ability to instantaneously jump from one location in space to another clearly violates the laws of physics. Or does it? There are a few rules in the Universe that seem […]
With a new data run coming in 2019 at unprecedented sensitivity, we might finally get our answers. Over the past three years, LIGO discovered ten independent instances of merging black holes […]
If everything in nature is made of quantum fields at its core, how do we wind up with particles at all? What is our Universe made out of? At a fundamental […]
With an assist from Einstein’s gravity and the power of the Hubble Space Telescope, it’s the brightest quasar we’ve ever discovered. In astronomy, there are two types of questions to […]
Kepler showed us that the Universe is full of planets around other stars. TESS is giving us our next great leap. It’s been nearly a decade since NASA’s Kepler mission first […]
This is what we’ve learned from first object ever discovered to enter our Solar System from interstellar space. Billions of years ago, our Solar System was an extraordinarily different place […]
On January 20/21, half of Earth will experience a total lunar eclipse. For the first time in 19 years, this includes all of North and South America. When the Sun, Earth, […]
Sometimes, chemistry can be more important for color than even physics. All across the world, volcanic eruptions remind us of the destructive power residing beneath Earth’s surface. You might be used […]
The 40th edition of the Starts With A Bang Podcast features Astronomer John O’Meara, the first pristine matter ever seen, and a 15-meter space telescope proposal! One of the great […]
We can explore the farthest reaches of the Universe, but can’t even complete our own cosmic backyard. The history of astronomy has been a history of receding horizons. The invention […]
Everything we know can be traced back to the Big Bang, and before that, cosmic inflation. But what if we look to the future? Looking out at the Universe today, it’s […]
The reason why is simple, and should apply to every solar system like our own. On January 3rd, 2019, Earth reached the point in its orbit where it’s at its closest […]
The Earth is getting warmer, and humans are the cause. This is why. Let’s play pretend for a moment. Pretend, if you can, that you’ve never heard about the idea of […]
If you photograph the Sun at the same time every day, you get a bizarre figure-8 shape: an analemma. Here’s why. At any time of day, you could theoretically set up […]
While nothing is ever certain about the future, here are 10 great achievements you can bet on. Every year, unexpected scientific discoveries challenge what we know. Observations using the Atacama Large […]