The Universe is out there, waiting for you to discover it.
Our mission: to answer, scientifically, the biggest questions of all.
- What is our Universe made of?
- How did it become the way it is today?
- Where did everything come from?
- What is the ultimate fate of the cosmos?
For countless generations, these were questions without resolutions. Now, for the first time in history, we have scientific answers. Starts With A Bang, written by Dr. Ethan Siegel, brings these stories — of what we know and how we know it — directly to you.
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Why power generated through nuclear fusion will be the future, but not the present, solution to humanity’s energy needs.
It’s a strange idea to consider: that a tiny building block of matter, the atomic nucleus, holds the greatest potential for energy release.
And yet, it’s true; while electron transitions in atoms or molecules typically release energy on the order of ~1 electron-Volt, nuclear transitions between different configurations release energies a million times as great, on the order of ~1 Mega-electron-Volt.
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From before the Big Bang to the present day, the Universe goes through many eras. Dark energy heralds the final one.
A wild, compelling idea without a direct, practical test, the Multiverse is highly controversial. But its supporting pillars sure are stable.
The surface and atmosphere is colored by ferric oxides. Beneath a very thin layer, mere millimeters deep in places, it’s not red anymore.
The first supernova ever discovered through its X-rays has an enormously powerful engine at its core. It’s unlike anything ever seen.
Just 13.8 billion years after the hot Big Bang, we can see 46.1 billion light-years away in all directions. Doesn’t that violate…something?
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Until recently, we were only able to view Venus’s surface with radar or by landing on the planet. It was believed that Venus’s surface was entirely obscured by clouds; NASA’s Parker Solar Probe proved otherwise.
Yes, the Universe is expanding, but you might wonder, “How fast is it expanding?”
65 million years ago, an asteroid strike caused the 5th great mass extinction. Could we save Earth, today, from a similar event?
The ANITA experiment found cosmic rays shooting out of Antarctica. One interpretation claims “parallel Universes,” but is that right?
Why power generated through nuclear fusion will be the future, but not the present, solution to humanity’s energy needs.
As viewed by the MeerKAT telescope, this radio view of the Milky Way blows away every other way we’ve ever seen our home galaxy.
There really might be extraterrestrials out there, attempting to make contact. Here’s how science, not fiction, is attempting to find them.
With launch costs dropping and enormous numbers of new satellites filling the sky, can’t we just do it all from space?
There are ~400 billion stars in the Milky Way, and ~2 trillion galaxies in the visible Universe. But what if we aren’t typical?
Travel half the distance to your destination, and there’s always another half to go. Despite Zeno’s Paradox, you always arrive right on time.
The Universe is supposed to be the same everywhere and in all directions. So what’s that giant “cold spot” doing out there?
Just 12 million light-years away, the galaxies Messier 81 and 82 offer a nearby preview of the Milky Way-Andromeda merger.
Is the Universe finite or infinite? Does it go on forever or loop back on itself? Here’s what would happen if you traveled forever.
There are an estimated two trillion galaxies within the observable Universe. Most are already unreachable, and the situation only gets worse.
The laws of physics obey certain symmetries and defy others. It’s theoretically tempting to add new ones, but reality doesn’t agree.
Hubble’s deepest views of space revealed fewer than 10% of the Universe’s galaxies. James Webb will change that forever.
In terms of the planets we’ve discovered, super-Earths are by far the most common. What does that mean for the Universe?
On the largest scales, galaxies don’t simply clump together, but form superclusters. Too bad they don’t remain bound together.
If you want to understand what the Universe is, how it began, evolved, and will eventually end, astrophysics is the only way to go.
At a fundamental level, nobody knows whether gravity is truly quantum in nature. A novel experiment strongly hints that it is.
In 1990, we only knew of the ones in our Solar System. Today, we know of thousands, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
We frequently say it’s 2.725 K: from the light left over all the way from the Big Bang. But that’s not all that’s in the Universe.
Even though no human has stepped foot on the Moon’s surface in 50 years, the evidence of our presence there remains unambiguous.
There are two fundamentally different ways of measuring the Universe’s expansion. They disagree. “Early dark energy” might save us.
The first supernova ever discovered through its X-rays has an enormously powerful engine at its core. It’s unlike anything ever seen.
The Solar System isn’t a vortex, but rather the sum of all our great cosmic motions. Here’s how we move through space.
Some stars burn through their fuel as expected, and die of natural causes. But others, instead, get murdered. Here’s their story.
With advanced laser technology and an appropriate sail, we could accelerate objects to ~20% the speed of light. But would they survive?
Particle physics needs a new collider to supersede the Large Hadron Collider. Muons, not electrons or protons, might hold the key.
From before the Big Bang to the present day, the Universe goes through many eras. Dark energy heralds the final one.