For generations, planet formation was only a theory. As 2018 comes to an end, here’s the evidence of what’s going on. The theory of planet formation has been around for a […]

Have you ever wanted to: see the southern skies? visit the best resort on the South American continent? explore the Atacama desert? see the world’s most powerful radio telescope array? […]

Welcome Seth Shostak, senior scientist at SETI, onto the show! Is there intelligent life out there in the Universe beyond planet Earth? If so, are they technologically advances, can they hear […]

A special isotope of plutonium is necessary for missions to Mars and beyond. But we don’t have enough, and aren’t making more fast enough. As 2018 comes to a close, NASA […]

It’s okay to be skeptical. That’s why we have evidence. In all of human history, only 24 people have ever flown to the vicinity of the Moon, traveling hundreds of […]

With thousands of discovered planets around stars beyond our own Sun, why haven’t we found the next Earth? Over the past 30 years, astronomers have gone from zero known extra-solar planets […]

It may have been captured by Neptune since it formed, but Triton remains king of the Kuiper belt. Our Solar System is arguably the most well-studied corner of the Universe, with […]

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. […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

From newborn planets to entire galaxies, we’re seeing the Universe as never before. The idea of a modern telescope is simple: collect light from a distant object, at high resolution, and […]

If you’ve ever wondered what truly lies beyond Neptune, this is one interview you won’t want to miss! Our Solar System formed some 4.6 billion years ago from a molecular cloud […]

The cosmic records we have are meant to be broken, but oh, have we ever gone so far. The great cosmic abyss contains more that humanity can ever hope to see, […]

NASA’s Chandra X-ray observatory has shown us the Universe like nothing else ever before. When it comes to the Universe, it mainly generates X-rays through high-temperature heating. X-rays from Chandra reveal […]

We can’t help but wonder if it’s habitable, or even inhabited, but the evidence isn’t there for it. Every star that fills the night sky carries along with it one of […]

These three reasons are why there’s no getting around the fact that astronomy needs the James Webb Space Telescope. Even the most powerful telescope in history, the Hubble Space Telescope, […]

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 […]

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 […]

The ices and rock aren’t green, and neither are the tails. So where does a comet’s green color come from? Every so often, with extreme regularity, comets will plunge from beyond […]

If the Breakthrough Starshot initiative, promoted by Stephen Hawking, works exactly as planned, it could lead to disaster. Imagine yourself on a world not so different from Earth, orbiting a […]

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft taught us more than we ever imagined about Saturn. Could we do something similar for Uranus and Neptune? From where we are in the Solar System, looking out […]

Three great things all align this August, making the Perseids a can’t-miss show. Here’s how to take advantage. When it comes to meteor showers, we have these dazzling pictures in […]

It wasn’t just the Milky Way and Andromeda two billion years ago. Here in the Local Group, our two largest galaxies dominate: Andromeda and the Milky Way. Our Local Group of […]