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.
1604 is the last time a human saw one with their naked eyes, but that wasn’t the most recent one at all. “When a star goes supernova, the explosion emits enough […]
Geology rocks! “Nobility, without virtue, is a fine setting without a gem.” –Jane Porter There are plenty of people out there who’ll give you a rundown of what your birthstone […]
How colliding galaxy clusters emit the most spectacular fireworks, if only you look beyond what your eyes can see! “Every single time you make a merger, somebody is losing his identity. […]
Thanks to the generous contributions of our Patreon supporters (which includes many of you), Starts With A Bang has now been creating free-to-listen-and-download podcasts for the past six months, including […]
If they shoot out straight lines of high-energy particles, why do they carve bubble-like shapes? “When a person starts to talk about their dreams, it’s as if something bubbles up […]
Everything else has a 5:1 dark matter-to-normal matter ratio. But get a smaller and smaller galaxy, and dark matter skyrockets! “For the moment we might very well can them DUNNOS […]
It’s said to be the majority of matter in the Universe, but how sure are we of that? “For the moment we might very well call them DUNNOS (for Dark Unknown […]
Those white spots are still salt, but there’s so much more there! “Although impact processes dominate the surface geology on Ceres, we have identified specific color variations on the surface […]
There’s been a small but significant excess observed, and a new particle is one possible explanation. What will it mean? “I’m a fan of supersymmetry, largely because it seems to be […]
Including the most massive star ever discovered in the Universe. “The night has a thousand eyes, and the day but one;Yet the light of the bright world dies with the […]
Our Universe is becoming colder, sparser and emptier. But is that its inevitable, ultimate fate? “Quintessence is a dynamic, time-evolving, and spatially dependent form of energy with negative pressure sufficient to […]
Some were kicked out of their Solar Systems at the beginning, while others never had a parent star at all. “The truth is you can be orphaned again and again and […]
It won’t mean that global warming has stopped, but that won’t stop the usual suspects from making their anti-science claims. “…as a scientist I was trained you always have to […]
Even most of the pros don’t know all 10. This post was contributed to Starts With A Bang by Sabine Hossenfelder. Sabine is a theoretical physicist specialized in quantum gravity […]
And it reveals the future of our galaxy’s unborn stars. “True realism consists in revealing the surprising things which habit keeps covered and prevents us from seeing.” –Jean Cocteau Our atmosphere […]
And what would that mean if it were one? “It is in the theory of perception that we have established our bond, or the lie I should say, for which we […]
No. Not even if you violate the laws of physics in two fundamental ways. John Oliver: So, roughly speaking, what are the chances that the world is going to be […]
LIGO was just the beginning of this new field of science, but a different experiment will lead the quantum breakthrough! “If you are not completely confused by quantum mechanics, you […]
Forget those WIMPy WIMPs, and move on up to WIMPzillas! “Eight solid light-years of lead…is the thickness of that metal in which you would need to encase yourself if you […]
No matter what the editorials in the Wall Street Journal say. “The fundamental choice is not whether humans will have faith, but rather what the objects of their faith will be, […]
Why are some areas redder than others? It’s what happens to methane ice in the Sun. “This is in a real sense the capstone of the initial missions to explore the […]
Don’t believe everything you read on the internet, even if “science” is in the title. “Youth always tries to fill the void, an old man learns to live with it.” –Mark Z. […]
Hint: it doesn’t have anything to do with our blue skies. “Whenever I gaze up at the moon, I feel like I’m on a time machine. I am back to that […]
The new “most distant galaxy” is a shocker! “Our spectroscopic observations reveal the galaxy to be even farther away than we had originally thought, right at the distance limit of what […]
A live-blog event of a fabulous public lecture given by Katie Freese on the unseen components in our Universe. “If you take everything we know… it only adds up to […]
And the story you heard about their origin being solved? It’s 100% wrong. “From a little spark may burst a flame.” –Dante Alighieri Although it was recently reported that a mysterious […]
Tuition costs have risen faster than any other set of costs in the USA. There’s a way to combat it, but we have to be brave. “When we make college more […]
Will it be Betelgeuse? Eta Carinae? Here are some candidates that are less popular, but perhaps more likely! “Some of them burn slow and long, like red dwarfs. Others — blue giants — burn […]
They don’t look like our other spherical maps we’re used to seeing. So what’s actually going on? “The bedrock nature of space and time and the unification of cosmos and quantum […]
What’s the science behind the need to add an extra day to the calendar every so often? “Will you or won’t you? Should you or shouldn’t you? Use this day […]