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.
And if you have a friend at the same longitude, you can even measure its circumference. This year’s equinox, on March 19/20 of 2020 (longitude-dependent), is Earth’s earliest in 124 […]
You’d have to throw out a lot of known physics for this to even be a possibility. Here’s why. It’s an undeniable scientific fact that dark matter must exist in order […]
Dark matter is perhaps the most mysterious substance in the Universe. What exactly it is, however, still eludes us. Dark matter is one of the most mysterious and yet most ubiquitous […]
It’s an incredibly useful approximation. But the truth takes us far deeper. Anyone who’s ever taken a physics course has learned the same myth for centuries now: that any object thrown, […]
Now is not the time to panic. But it’s the perfect time to get informed. The typical human body is made out of some 10²⁸ atoms distributed across approximately 100 […]
Should we build a more powerful collider? A telescope that probes the Universe as never before? Absolutely. Here’s why. Every time someone proposes that we invest in fundamental science — to push the […]
The full Moon is always a sight worth looking at. This March, the full Worm Moon is a little more “super” than usual. The full Moon is always a spectacular sight: […]
The light we observe isn’t the same as the light that gets emitted. Here’s what causes it. The light you see, when you look out at the stars and galaxies that […]
Unbelievably enough, it all comes back to Pythagoras. One of the first theorems anyone learns in mathematics is the Pythagorean Theorem: if you have a right triangle, then the square […]
No one has seen an equinox this early since the 19th century. And you’d better get used to it. This year, on March 19, 2020, the equinox will occur. For a […]
As time goes on, every galaxy beyond our local group will speed away from us faster and faster. And yet, more will keep appearing. The farther away a galaxy is […]
After the Big Bang, merging supermassive black holes are unparalleled. Here’s how we’ll find the first one. Last week, NASA’s Chandra X-ray observatory made history by announcing the most energetic explosive […]
A black hole punched a hole 15 Milky Ways across in a galaxy cluster’s gas, by far the largest ‘kaboom’ ever seen. The Universe, everywhere we look, is full of cataclysmic […]
Not everything needs a medium to travel through. If we can overcome that assumption, we don’t need the aether at all. All throughout the Universe, different types of signals propagate. Some […]
It’s not a lack of motivation, intelligence, or capability. Here’s how to open a space. Over the past 20 years, the number of bachelor’s degrees awarded in physics has more than […]
It isn’t just a day that comes every four years; it’s everything we need to keep our calendar aligned with Earth’s orbit. Once every four years, at least under most circumstances, […]
Ever wonder, exactly, how stars form from molecular gas and dust? So do scientists. One of the great challenges for astronomy is to determine, in gory detail, how stars are […]
Few scientific ideas have been as polarizing as string theory. There are good reasons to both love it and hate it. String theory is perhaps the most controversial big idea in […]
There are three possible ways we’ll find alien life. With all of these chances, the only question is which will come first. Given everything humanity has learned about the Universe, it […]
It’s one of only five spacecraft that will exit the Solar System, and the only one we have a chance to aim at another star. Of all the spacecraft ever launched, […]
If all forms of energy experience gravitation, then why does dark energy make the expansion accelerate instead of slow down? Of all the revolutionary discoveries that we’ve made about the Universe, […]
Sure, cosmic inflation has its detractors. But it also has something no alternative possesses: predictions and tests. Perhaps the most compelling part of any remarkable story is its origin: how it […]
Despite its changing shape and its unprecedented dimming, a supernova this year, decade, or even century is highly unlikely. For months, skywatchers have enjoyed a view of the night sky […]
With tens of thousands of satellites requiring AI-control to avoid collisions, a single solar flare could everything. Over the next few years, the night sky and the volume of space […]
A fascinating new book tells the untold stories of two women, Jackie Cochran and Jerrie Cobb, who could have been first. On June 18, 1983, the Space Shuttle Challenger launched with […]
One of NASA’s original great observatories, Spitzer showed us the infrared Universe as never before. On January 30, 2020, NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope was retired after a 17 year mission. Prior […]
Black hole mergers are some of the most energetic events in the Universe. Could the gravitational waves they produce ever harm us? The Universe is not a static, stable place. Out […]
It really is the ‘glue’ that holds the Universe together, enabling structures like our own galaxy to form in the first place. One of the most puzzling and counterintuitive facts about […]
Scientific surprises are often how science advances. But more often than not, they’re just bad science. When you’re a scientist, getting an unexpected result can be a double-edged sword. The best […]
And how cutting just $1 billion per year in funding from NASA’s budget would be a catastrophe for science. When you think of the great cosmic beyond and what we know […]