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 the Big Bang happened and everything is moving away from us, where’s the center? “I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out […]
There is so much we’ve discovered and so far that we’ve come. But there’s a limit to knowledge we’ll never be able to overcome. “To know that we know what […]
We haven’t found the truly “first” ones yet, but we’re not just on our way; we’re almost there. “For the first time we can learn about individual stars from near the […]
Sometimes science is stranger than fiction. “To morrow, I believe, is to be an eclipse of the sun, and I think it perfectly meet and proper that the sun in the […]
Last week, an asteroid fell from the sky and struck the Lake Michigan area. What if it had been a city-killer instead? “By preventing dangerous asteroid strikes, we can save […]
It’s the longest feast we’ve ever seen, and it’s still going on! But why? “Put two ships in the open sea, without wind or tide, and, at last, they will come […]
Is gravitational repulsion a real thing? “For the first time, astronomers have outlined and named the network of galaxies that includes the Milky Way, adding a line to our cosmic address […]
Why Saturn’s Iapetus has three great mysteries… and we’ve only solved one of them. “The dance between darkness and light will always remain — the stars and the moon will always need the […]
One of the most famous quantum physicists of all makes his mark in space, 80 years after first predicting it. “What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed […]
Before you even look through your telescope, you need to know where to begin. “If you can’t measure something, you can’t understand it. If you can’t understand it, you can’t control […]
It may be the only way to save the USA — and the world — from alternative facts. “If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment.” –Ernest Rutherford There […]
The outer three can even be seen with a small, 1.5 meter telescope. This 2010 picture of three of the four known exoplanets orbiting HR 8799 represents the first time […]
It’s the most fundamental fabric of the Universe itself. But how does it work? “‘Space-time’ — that hideous hybrid whose very hyphen looks phoney.” –Vladimir Nabokov When it comes to understanding the Universe, there […]
Beyond climate change, ice ages or even the death of our Sun, the cosmic dance continues for ages. Here’s how it will truly end. “The way to love anything is to […]
There’s useful science to be gotten out of it, but most science that mentions it is anything but. “There is a voice inside of youThat whispers all day long,‘I feel this […]
How a telescope 100 times the size of Hubble is going to change everything. “For my confirmation, I didn’t get a watch and my first pair of long pants, like […]
Is it conserved? Destroyed? Radiated away? 40+ years on, we still don’t have answers. This article was contributed by Sabine Hossenfelder. Sabine is a theoretical physicist specialized in quantum gravity and […]
Why do the asteroids that fall to Earth have the composition they do? A giant space collision 466 million years ago may be to blame. “Men of genius are often dull […]
It’s been going on ever since we first discovered the expansion, and there’s no resolution in sight. The discovery almost 100 years ago that the Universe was expanding was a revolution […]
Why weightlessness is possible, even if there’s no place you can hide from the Universe’s longest-range force. “It was a strange lightness, a drifting feeling. Zero gravity. I understood that […]
What it means that 2016 is the hottest year on record. “There are now dozens of hockey sticks and the all come to the same basic conclusion. The recent warming does […]
How the James Webb Space Telescope was made. “One way or another the first stars must have influenced our own history, beginning with stirring up everything and producing the other chemical […]
What caused the incredible eruption that Hubble caught on film? A predicted merger in 5 years might show us. “We have chased away the clouds, the sky is all ‘rose.’” –Francois […]
How to turn a galaxy on, once and for all. “Speculating and predicting what lies beyond the boundary is fascinating. Finding out is even more fascinating.” –Wallace H. Tucker When two […]
And when you demand ‘perfectly identical,’ just how high of a bar are you setting? “Lives are snowflakes — unique in detail, forming patterns we have seen before, but as like one another […]
Science, pictures, and a revolution in what we know is out there. “The history of astronomy is a history of receding horizons.” –Edwin Hubble The Hubble Space Telescope took its first […]
Nearly 100 years after Hubble first showed us the Universe is expanding, we still don’t know its rate. “In the far, far future, essentially all matter will have returned to […]
If you think you can just take a test and demonstrate your scientific literacy, think again. “Through basic science literacy, people can understand the policy choices we need to be making. […]
Why it’s not “the next Hubble,” but “the first James Webb.” “…because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills; because that challenge is […]
Only a few galaxies exhibit this green glow in the nearby Universe. At early times, it’s practically all of the brightest ones. “The discovery that young galaxies are so unexpectedly […]