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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Featured
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.
Popular
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?
All Stories
LIGO’s enormous arms contract and expand as gravitational waves pass through them. But, puzzlingly, so does the light within them. For the past three years, humanity has known a new kind […]
A very clever idea says there’s a ninth Solar System planet, larger than Earth, far beyond Neptune. Here’s why most scientists think it’s not real. It’s been nearly three years since […]
The nightmare scenario of no new particles or interactions at the LHC is coming true. And it might be our own fault. Over at the Large Hadron Collider, protons simultaneously circle […]
Shortly after the Big Bang, the Universe became completely dark. The first stars, when they ignited, changed everything. For perhaps 100 million years, the Universe was devoid of stars. The […]
An Oxford physicist tries to cast doubt on dark energy, but the data says otherwise. It was a mere 20 years ago that our picture of the Universe got a […]
The other great spiral galaxy in the local group demonstrates why we’re #2, even in our own backyard. The Milky Way is our cosmic home, containing hundreds of billions of […]
Of all the experiments performed and measurements made involving fundamental particles, none has ever violated the Standard Model. Until now. If there’s one thing you can count on physicists for, it’s […]
Our biases, preferences, and ideas of simplicity and elegance can get in the way. Here’s a scientific way to cut through them all. What are the rules governing reality? If you […]
Every physical theory has constants in it. The gravitational constant is remarkably uncertain. When we first began formulating physical laws, we did so empirically: through experiments. Drop a ball off […]
For perhaps 100 million years, there were no stars in the Universe. What was it like then? The earliest stages of the Universe were extraordinarily eventful in bringing us about. Cosmic […]
Not everyone is satisfied with the Big Bang. But every alternative is a disastrous failure. It’s treated as though it’s an unassailable scientific truth: 13.8 billion years ago, the Universe […]
Some wildfires will always be unavoidable. But nature, thankfully, recovers relatively quickly. The past few years have brought some devastating wildfires to large parts of the American west. A wildfire […]
They make up 95% of our Universe today, but they weren’t always so important. One of the most puzzling mysteries about the Universe is simply, “where is everything?” All that […]
Dark matter is our leading theory for a reason. New, detailed studies of the smallest galaxies could kill off the most studied alternative. When you look out at the Universe, […]
One of the most popular viral videos about space is dead wrong. But it gives us a chance to learn something incredible. There are a lot of moving parts to […]
It took hundreds of thousands of years to make atoms for the first time. If things were just a little different, it could have taken an eternity. When it comes […]
Stars don’t stay the same throughout their life, and the Sun is no exception. Here’s what’s going on. Here on Earth, the ingredients for life to survive, thrive, evolve, and sustain […]
NASA’s 28-year-old workhorse is still lighting up our knowledge and imagination of the Universe. A generation ago, Hubble opened its eyes on the great cosmic abyss: viewing the depths of […]
The most massive star in the known Universe is 260 times as heavy as our Sun. But viewing the early Universe will shatter that record. Place enough mass together in one […]
Our Universe may not be all there is, was, or ever will be, after all. There’s been a lot of speculative ideas put forth about the Multiverse, and I dare say […]
We don’t need the many-worlds of quantum mechanics to have more Universes than we know what to do with. “The Universe is all there is, or was, or will be.” That […]
For the Pluto fans, another sad state of affairs: your favorite world won’t make it. Nothing on Earth lasts forever, and that’s a truth that even extends to all the objects […]
Before there were humans, planets, or even stars and galaxies, we had to make the first elements. Here’s how they happened. From the first moments of Big Bang to the […]
Different measurements of the Universe’s rate of expansion give inconsistent results. But this simple solution could fix everything. In 1915, Einstein’s theory of General Relativity gave us a brand new […]
With every second that goes by, tens of thousands of star disappear from our reach. And it’s getting worse. It’s been nearly a century since scientists first theorized that the Universe […]
Never draw a conclusion, no matter how ‘obvious,’ without doing the experiment first. We all love our most cherished ideas about how the world and the Universe works. Our conception […]
The Universe was born matter-antimatter symmetric. Here’s what happened when the last of our antimatter disappeared. Things happen fast in the earliest stages of the Universe. In the first 25 […]
In all the years of NASA, we’ve never touched the Sun before. Here’s why it’s so hard. This past weekend, NASA successfully launched the Parker Solar Probe: the first spacecraft that […]
The Universe is an enormous place, but we can’t see all the way back to the beginning. Here’s the latest record-breaker. No matter how far back we look in the […]
In General Relativity, even space and time themselves aren’t what they seem. Gravity might have been the first fundamental force ever discovered, but in many ways, it remains the least-well understood. […]