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.
It’s been over 100 years since Einstein, and over 300 since Newton. We’ve still got a long way to go. From measuring how objects fall on Earth to observing the motion […]
If dark matter doesn’t interact with normal matter or light, how can it be heated up? One of the great cosmic mysteries of our time is the presence and existence of […]
From billions of miles away, a faint, single pixel shows us how precious and alone Earth truly is. There are people alive today who can remember a time where no human-made […]
The heaviest elements in the periodic table have their own unique story. No, they don’t come from a supernova. When it comes to the elements of the Universe, every one […]
It was so well-motivated and compelling. But the particles never appeared. Every so often, an idea comes along in theoretical physics that’s undeniably profound. When a single idea can solve […]
The first planet beyond ‘naked eye’ astronomy will pass within just 1° of Mars. Although there are eight major planets in the Solar System, most of us never see Uranus or […]
You’d be amazed at what you can learn from even one single pixel. Over the past decade, owing largely to NASA’s Kepler mission, our knowledge of planets around star systems beyond […]
The Universe is filled with something, as opposed to nothing, and scientists don’t understand it. When we look around at the Universe: at the planets and stars, at the galaxies […]
Scientific discovery often happens when you least expect it. But no one could’ve expected this. Imagine that you’re a scientist, going out on a limb to design and build an experiment […]
We know that life is possible on an Earth-like world around a Sun-like star. But can it find a way on a Super-Earth? When it comes to the origin of […]
Theoretical work tells you where to look, but only experiments can reveal what you’ll find. There are fundamental mysteries out there about the nature of the Universe itself, and it’s our […]
If we were in a place like the Coma Cluster instead of the Local Group, we’d already be dead. In a living spiral galaxy, like the Milky Way, the rich gas […]
Our motion through space is undeniable. So why can’t we feel it? Our planet isn’t the stationary place we feel it to be beneath our feet, but rather moves in an […]
When two different techniques give two different results, either someone is wrong, or something incredible is happening. Imagine you were a scientist attempting to measure some property of the Universe. […]
A new study claims that dark energy is changing with time. Here’s what it would mean, if true. For the past generation, we’ve recognized that our Universe is a particularly dark […]
Weather isn’t climate. The President isn’t a scientist. And physics is still real. The country is freezing in an unprecedented fashion, and global warming is to blame. Sound crazy? The cold […]
Not building one means giving up on brute force. We’re not yet ready to do that. There’s a problem with the field of high-energy physics, and it’s the biggest one imaginable. […]
Only 8 worlds make the astronomical cut as planets. Here are the 10 fascinating bodies that didn’t make it. Astronomically, bodies within the Solar System must achieve three criteria in order […]
LIGO, here on Earth, has exquisitely-precise distances its lasers travel. With three spacecrafts in motion, how could LISA work? Since it began operating in 2015, advanced LIGO has ushered in an […]
Although the great Martian dust storm of 2018 may have ended its life, its accomplishments will live on forever. Note: This article was originally published on January 25, 2019 on Forbes. […]
The Boomerang Nebula, in our galaxy, is even colder than completely empty space. Here’s how that’s possible. Imagine the coldest place you possibly can. Inside it, the particles that make […]
All the other planets have craters, icecaps, clouds, or a rich, banded structure. But not Uranus. The eight major planets of the Solar System all possess their own unique features. The […]
We’d never flown past or imaged a small, isolated Kuiper belt object before. Here’s what we know so far. As 2018 ended and 2019 began, NASA’s New Horizons flew past its […]
Whether you caught or missed the eclipse of January 20/21, 2019, here’s what you need to know for all the ones you’ll ever view again. On January 20/21, 2019, a very […]
Our Universe is full of surprises. This latest one, AT2018cow, has ignited a controversy between astronomers. The Universe is an ever-changing place, particularly if you look at it on long-enough […]
A rare, ultra-diffuse galaxy is full of stars and not much else. Here’s how to make sense of it. One of the greatest puzzles in the entire Universe is the dark […]
The ability to instantaneously jump from one location in space to another clearly violates the laws of physics. Or does it? There are a few rules in the Universe that seem […]
With a new data run coming in 2019 at unprecedented sensitivity, we might finally get our answers. Over the past three years, LIGO discovered ten independent instances of merging black holes […]
If everything in nature is made of quantum fields at its core, how do we wind up with particles at all? What is our Universe made out of? At a fundamental […]
With an assist from Einstein’s gravity and the power of the Hubble Space Telescope, it’s the brightest quasar we’ve ever discovered. In astronomy, there are two types of questions to […]