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.
Get Starts With A Bang in your inbox
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
We may use superlatives all the time, but that’s no substitute for quantifying just how bad, big, or important something is. This article was written by Kimberly Arcand and Megan […]
Science communication is about more than just “stating facts.” A lot more. “Curious that we spend more time congratulating people who have succeeded than encouraging people who have not.” –Neil deGrasse […]
It’s incredibly simple and straightforward, and the science doesn’t lie. (And yes, global warming played a role!) “The hurricane flooded me out of a lot of memorabilia, but it can’t flood […]
Every star dies, but not every would-be star really lives. “The origin and evolution of life are connected in the most intimate way with the origin and evolution of the stars.” […]
Many sci-fi technologies will remain in the realm of fiction unless physics changes. But some experiments could uncover just that! “Imagination makes us aware of limitless possibilities. How many of us […]
Earthquake? Nuclear explosion? Fission or fusion? We know, even if world leaders lie. “North Korea has taught a great lesson to all the countries in the world, especially the rogue countries […]
Our most common fears of the “other” extend even into outer space. Here’s why those fears are baseless. “Man has gone out to explore other worlds and other civilizations without […]
For the first time, the gravitational wave sky and the astronomical sky might be coming together. It’s a new era, at long last. “Presently thought to be the most powerful explosions […]
Did you experience totality? I did, for the first time. And it was, even as a well-prepared scientist, beyond anything I expected. “All that is nowAll that is goneAll that’s […]
A new podcast: a first-person account, by a scientist, of what it was like to live and experience totality for the first time. “I sometimes ask people, ‘Can you be aware […]
Want to be hotter? Add more mass. Want to go even hotter than that? Lose almost all of it. “A candidate is not going to suddenly change once they get into […]
When matter falls in, black holes grow. But Hawking radiation says that black holes decay. Who wins? “Maybe that is our mistake: maybe there are no particle positions and velocities, but […]
More than 90% of the eclipses to ever happen on Earth have already occurred. Don’t miss the next one! “We live in a moment of history where change is so speeded […]
The pulsar map to Earth was perfect when it was launched. By time aliens get it, it’ll be completely useless. “We [are] a species endowed with hope and perseverance, at […]
The new Moon is brighter than every star in the sky. But you’ll never see it during an eclipse. “Even though the reason for taking the photographs was science, the result […]
The origin of life on Earth may have nothing to do with Earth at all. “An extrapolation of the genetic complexity of organisms to earlier times suggests that life began before […]
It’s a great show in total darkness. Here’s how to not ruin it for yourself. “Yes, I am well aware that nature — or what we call nature: that totality of objects […]
It’s a lot more than just being unable to measure two things simultaneously. “In the future, maybe quantum mechanics will teach us something equally chilling about exactly how we exist […]
No other object this large has come so close to Earth in millions of years. In the 5th millennium, we might suffer the consequences. “Honestly, if you’re given the choice […]
When you’re confronted by some new information, how do you tell whether it’s valid or not? “I’m old enough to remember when the polio vaccine was still new. Also, it hadn’t […]
That number is far bigger than anyone expected, but physics doesn’t lie. “Our first priority was making sure we weren’t fooling ourselves.” –Keith Riles, LIGO team member How many black holes are […]
It isn’t about saving us from aliens at all. “To be on my very first spacewalk, to be outside, and to have contamination in my suit to the point that I […]
Oregon, Idaho, and Wyoming are all on fire, and simply driving your car can be the most dangerous thing of all. “I’d rather fight 100 structure fires than a wildfire. With […]
Drop a chunk of sodium metal into water, and a violent reaction ensues. But it’s more than just chemistry at play. “Chlorine is a deadly poison gas employed on European battlefields […]
99 years ago, General Relativity was still unproven. During the 1918 eclipse, a small team of Americans almost changed that. “Astronomers are greatly disappointed when, having traveled halfway around the world […]
Gravitational waves and spacetime ripples have so much more to do with the Universe than just merging black holes. “The years of searching in the dark for a truth that one […]
If you know when, where and how to look, the show will still be spectacular. “My dad took me out to see a meteor shower when I was a little […]
Black holes shouldn’t be this big, much less this big so many billions of years ago. Yet here we are. “Ultramassive black holes — that is, black holes with masses exceeding 10 billion […]
The speed of light is a universal constant, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that light always travels at that speed, does it? “There was a young lady named Bright,Whose speed was […]
The atoms, planets, stars, and even galaxies aren’t expanding, even though space is. How come? This article was written by Sabine Hossenfelder. Sabine is a theoretical physicist specialized in quantum gravity […]