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.
The neutron star-neutron star merger was initially only seen in 1 detector out of 3. Here’s how scientists didn’t let it slip away. On August 17th, 2017, a gravitational wave event […]
Even if it can’t detect them directly, we’ll learn the answer. Here’s how. Perhaps the most revolutionary find of the past generation, when we think about the Universe beyond Earth, is […]
The deep dive into the mirror Universe, and the ethics of how we deal with purity and diversity, is just getting started. Life in the mirror Universe isn’t easy for anyone. […]
What do our future missions in physics, astronomy, astrophysics and more hold? If you went back in time just 30 years, the world as we it was a completely different place. […]
Are we looking for life in all the wrong ways, like SETI with smoke signals? A little over 80 years ago, humanity first began broadcasting radio and television signals with enough […]
They’re less than a billion years old. And, thanks to ALMA, they might finally pave the way to understanding how galaxies form. How do galaxies like our Milky Way come to […]
Multiple teams of scientists can’t agree on how fast the Universe expands. Dark matter may unlock why. There’s an enormous controversy in astrophysics today over how quickly the Universe is expanding. […]
There is no reason for science and faith to be hostile to one another. If you want to figure out how the Universe works, you have to ask. Not by asking […]
Last week, the crew found themselves in the mirror Universe. Here’s what science has to say about that. Star Trek: Discovery entered their midseason hiatus on a terrific cliffhanger: they had […]
They’re the fastest rotators of all. So how distorted are they? There are very few objects in the Universe that stand still; almost everything we know of rotates in some way. […]
If nature makes equal amounts of matter and antimatter, how are we here? When you look out at the vastness of the Universe, at the planets, stars, galaxies, and all there […]
Combining nanotechnology of two different varieties might be the game-changer we’ve always dreamed of. For as long as human beings have been writing about fantasy, myth, and science fiction, the dream […]
A cosmic controversy is back, and at least one camp — perhaps both — is making an unidentified error. Ever since Hubble first discovered the relationship between a galaxy’s distance and its motion away […]
What if alien life — or even intelligence — don’t look like what we’re searching for? When the original Star Trek premiered, it was revolutionary for depicting sentient, intelligent species other than humans, living […]
This list of 10 non-winners is 50% women, but 100% outrageous. In science, advances often come in great leaps. In hindsight, it’s easy to identify perhaps hundreds of small steps […]
Aiming for the nearest star would necessitate a whole slew of advances. Even if the mission fails, humanity wins by investing in itself. There have been some magnificent moments in NASA […]
The truth might not be ‘out there’ at all. There may never have been another intelligent, technologically advanced alien species in the entire history of the Universe. When you take into […]
The Event Horizon Telescope has come online and taken its data. Now, we wait for the results. Black holes are some of the most incredible objects in the Universe. There are […]
How did black holes get so supermassive so fast? Astrophysics may be about to find out, thanks to three big 2017 discoveries. There’s a big problem when we look at […]
From the birth and deaths of stars to the largest structures in the Universe, Hubble shows us what we’d never see otherwise. When it comes to the Universe itself, perhaps […]
Out of five vital questions, which one should we most desire the answer to? Despite all we’ve learned about physics, science, and the Universe before us, there are still some incredibly […]
What does science have to say about the biggest questions about existence of all? Find out on our new Starts With A Bang podcast. Ever wonder about the biggest questions that […]
The President laid out his ambition, but no money to fund it. It’s a classic Trump move, and a recipe for failure. Last week, President Trump signed Space Policy Directive 1, […]
All of this has happened before… but not like this! As the year draws to a close, we approach a very special time of year, at least from an astronomical perspective. […]
Today, our visible Universe contains 2 trillion galaxies, each with billions of stars. But when did the very first one appear? When we look out at our Universe today, there are […]
It isn’t the Big Bang or stars like the Sun that gave rise to us. The story is far more… explosive. At the smallest level, the human body is made […]
Do these five experiments right in your own living room, and explore some of the most baffling phenomena in all of nature. It’s a revolutionary idea that the Universe is made […]
The ‘big discovery’ is nothing of the kind. We need a new planet-finding mission to probe the next frontier. Last week, NASA dropped a bombshell that it’s Kepler mission — the greatest […]
Those awful almost-changes they made? They could have avoided the whole problem by simply doing the math. Designed for artists, writers, and creatives* of all different persuasions, Patreon has become a […]
If you haven’t finished your holiday shopping yet, consider these 10 gifts, good any time of year! One of the hardest things when it comes to holiday shopping is to find […]