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.
‘Luck’ is the wrong word. The Universe cooperated, but we gave ourselves the opportunity by being prepared. It was already 28 years ago that the Hubble Space Telescope was launched […]
And it isn’t Einstein’s equations… but it does come from them! There are some incredibly big questions that humanity has been asking about the Universe since we first began looking upwards: […]
The solar neighborhood is so different than people imagine. But for the first time, we know what it’s like. When you look up at the stars in the night sky, they […]
Whatever you do, don’t try to wash it away with water. Every few months, a volcanic eruption occurs on Earth, with lava flows and enormous plumes of volcanic ash. In 2015, […]
We see matter, but not antimatter, in our Universe. Could black holes be the answer? One of the greatest cosmic puzzles in our entire Universe is why there’s so much more […]
There are a slew of Earth Science missions that NASA has planned for the future. We need all of them (and more) for a thriving planet. When most people think of […]
But if a radical new idea comes to fruition, maybe we can find them after all. After decades of planning, building, prototyping, upgrading, and calibrating, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) […]
Imagine looking at one saturated pixel for years on end, and somehow learning what worlds live around it. That’s what science is for! When you think of what’s out there in […]
Just one equation relates the expansion of space to all the matter and energy we have. If you know this, you can know the fate of the Universe. Last week, […]
The picture itself is breathtaking. But what we learn is truly eye-opening. Galaxy clusters, like the massive one captured here by Hubble, PLCK G004.5–19.5, impress not just for their looks, […]
In the far future, the last star burns out, stellar corpses get violently ejected, and galaxies accelerate away. And then the fun begins. For centuries, the biggest questions about our Universe […]
Just because humans wouldn’t do well over there doesn’t mean there aren’t incredible chances for life. For nearly 30 years, scientists have been discovering planets beyond our Solar System: the exoplanets […]
If it can stretch the Universe from the size of a subatomic particle to billions of light years in a fraction of a second, why doesn’t Einstein’s relativity forbid it? When […]
Sure, we found the Higgs Boson at the LHC earlier this decade. But what else has, and more importantly, hasn’t turned up? It’s now just over five years since the two […]
Among the general public, people compare it to the aether, phlogiston, or epicycles. Yet almost all astronomers are certain: dark matter and dark energy exist. Here’s why. If you go by […]
After generations of speculations, we’ve finally got the images that tell us the full story. Some 4.5 billion years ago, our Sun and Solar System were born from a collapsing cloud […]
It took the Universe 9.2 billion years to create the Earth, and another 4 billion for complex life. Could we have gotten there faster? The story of how the Universe came […]
BICEP2 scientist Brian Keating’s new book is honest and insightful, but just as notable for what it fails to recognize. Imagine what it’s like to be a scientist working on […]
In the aftermath of everything we’ve learned about what’s in the Universe, we can make much better estimates of how many alien civilizations are out there. In 1961, scientist Frank Drake […]
And thanks to a new technique and set of observations, we think we know exactly where to find them. At the center of practically every galaxy is a supermassive black hole, […]
Even with nothing new falling into it, our radius is increasing with every second that goes by. It’s no big secret that galaxies grow over time. The force of gravity is […]
NGC 1052-DF2 was said to ‘defy theory,’ incorrectly, by many. Here’s what our current theories actually predict. Last week, astronomers announced the discovery of NGC 1052-DF2: a galaxy without dark matter. […]
A recent study points to the possibility that just 70,000 years ago, a star passed through our Solar System. How often does this happen, and what are the consequences? We […]
Including where to go, and when, for the most spectacular views. Against the backdrop of a dark, clear night sky, you can see the Moon, planets, stars, the Milky Way, […]
The paradox is one that Hawking himself claimed to have a solution to many times, but none of the proposals have held up to scrutiny. The paradox is still unresolved. […]
The same technology that Norway uses to keep its fjords ice-free could literally take the power out of hurricanes as they form. Among all the natural disasters that occur on planet […]
Congress refused the majority of Trump’s proposed cuts to NASA’s budget. But many uncertainties remain. On March 21st, 2018, both branches of Congress passed the United States’ Consolidated Appropriations Act, […]
Two major galaxies in the local group are already in the process of being devoured by us… and each other. The Milky Way is the second-largest galaxy in our local group, […]
It’s the first, most naive question you might think to ask. The solution is a lot more complicated than you imagine. According to a large amount of evidence, the overwhelming majority […]
If everything was hot, dense, and super close-together at the Big Bang, what kept us from collapsing into a singularity? The Big Bang is one of the most counterintuitive ideas […]