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.
Having ‘high levels of intelligence’ is no excuse for rejecting quality scientific information. You think of yourself as a generally intelligent person, don’t you? Someone who’s good at deducing fact […]
The first planets were only gas. The second included rocky ones, but life wasn’t possible. Here’s how we finally got there. Here in the Universe today, potentially habitable planets are practically […]
All the planets, asteroids, and Kuiper belt objects out there all point to the same conclusion: it’s giant impacts or no moons at all. Out of all the rocky planets […]
Galaxies are found uniformly everywhere in the Universe, except in the Milky Way’s plane. Here’s why. From the time of their very first discovery, the Universe’s grand spirals have puzzled astronomers. […]
We can go to deeper and deeper levels, finding more fundamental quantities as we do. But is there a truly fundamental quantity? What is the Universe, at a fundamental level, […]
If particles weren’t also waves, the Sun would never achieve nuclear fusion. Without quantum mechanics, life on Earth would never have come to exist. The greatest source of newly-produced energy in […]
At ground zero, Trinitite, the green, glassy substance found in the area, is still radioactive and must not be picked up. The Trinity Site was where the first atomic bomb […]
The line between science and pseudoscience is imperceptible to most. Here’s how you can catch it in yourself. When it comes to science, the first principle is that you must […]
The Solar System’s outermost, undisputed planet wasn’t discovered until the 19th century. Here’s how you can easily find it yourself this December. There’s no greater scientific thrill than discovering something […]
Over 9 billion years ago, a distant star exploded. Thanks to Einstein, we’ve seen it multiple times on replay. All across the Universe, matter and energy curve the fabric of space, […]
And do they fundamentally describe our entire Universe, or do we require something else? The Universe we perceive and view, all around us, isn’t representative of what actually exists at […]
And, even with all we know, what still remains unexplained? At a fundamental level, our Universe is made of particles, forces, interactions, and the fabric of space and time. Spacetime […]
It’s a problem that we still haven’t solved, and it spells doom for all of our low-Earth orbiting satellites, even today. On October 4th, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, […]
The first identified visitor from another solar system gets its own Starts With A Bang podcast! In 2017, the incredible happened: for the first time in history, we were able to […]
For more than 10 billion years, the star-formation rate across the Universe has been plummeting. Here’s the story. Take a look at a wide variety of galaxies in the Universe, and […]
It’s not simply Hubble’s Law anymore, but the real history is far more complex than the stories you’ve heard. One of the most mind-blowing facts in our existence is that space […]
The cosmic story of us, from before the Big Bang until today, is a story that all of us share. Enjoy it, in just 200 words. In the beginning, there was […]
The densest objects in the Universe are also the most difficult to destroy. But eventually, destruction always prevails. There are quite a few ways to make the black holes we […]
Hubble holds the record, finding a galaxy when the Universe was just 3% it’s age. In just a few years, James Webb will shatter it. One of the great scientific lessons […]
When scientists claim that an unexplained phenomenon might be due to aliens, they’re giving up on science. Whenever science discovers a new, unexpected phenomenon, it represents a tremendous opportunity to learn […]
The answer has nothing at all to do with the Higgs boson. In this Universe, there are very few fundamental properties that cannot be derived from something simpler. The rules governing […]
International enrollment and applications to American grad schools are plummeting. This is the opposite of what makes America great. Throughout the 20th century and into the 21st, America emerged at the […]
By time you see a pillar at all, almost all of your ‘formation’ is already finished. In the heart of the Eagle Nebula, the iconic Pillars of Creation loom as […]
Despite what Hawking told you, it really isn’t about particle-antiparticle pairs at all. Nothing in the Universe lives forever. All the stars that will ever form will someday burn out; distant […]
Lasers, mirrors, and computational advances can all work together to push ground-based astronomy past even the limits of Hubble. One of the most profoundly remarkable properties about our atmosphere is that […]
The Large Hadron Collider allowed us to complete the Standard Model. Even so, what we have is incomplete. Here’s what could come next. The Large Hadron Collider is the most powerful […]
It took more than 9 billion years for Earth to form: the only known planet housing life. But it could have happened much, much sooner. The cosmic story that unfolded following […]
Your fate is only rarely determined at birth. Ultimately, every star has a chance to get there. Three times in the past 1,000 years, a portion of humanity has looked up […]
These ten ghostly astronomical sights house some deep-and-frightening scientific truths within them. With a huge suite of different observatories for viewing the Universe, innumerable details can be revealed. This ‘Godzilla’ asterism […]
We speak about it, argue over it, and even fight wars for it. We know it when we see it. But just what is energy, anyway? When it comes to being […]