The Universe is out there, waiting for you to discover it.
Our mission: to answer, scientifically, the biggest questions of all.
- What is our Universe made of?
- How did it become the way it is today?
- Where did everything come from?
- What is the ultimate fate of the cosmos?
For countless generations, these were questions without resolutions. Now, for the first time in history, we have scientific answers. Starts With A Bang, written by Dr. Ethan Siegel, brings these stories — of what we know and how we know it — directly to you.
Featured
Why power generated through nuclear fusion will be the future, but not the present, solution to humanity’s energy needs.
It’s a strange idea to consider: that a tiny building block of matter, the atomic nucleus, holds the greatest potential for energy release.
And yet, it’s true; while electron transitions in atoms or molecules typically release energy on the order of ~1 electron-Volt, nuclear transitions between different configurations release energies a million times as great, on the order of ~1 Mega-electron-Volt.
Popular
From before the Big Bang to the present day, the Universe goes through many eras. Dark energy heralds the final one.
A wild, compelling idea without a direct, practical test, the Multiverse is highly controversial. But its supporting pillars sure are stable.
The surface and atmosphere is colored by ferric oxides. Beneath a very thin layer, mere millimeters deep in places, it’s not red anymore.
The first supernova ever discovered through its X-rays has an enormously powerful engine at its core. It’s unlike anything ever seen.
Just 13.8 billion years after the hot Big Bang, we can see 46.1 billion light-years away in all directions. Doesn’t that violate…something?
All Stories
When it comes to our Universe’s origins, scientists discuss the Big Bang, cosmic inflation, and other theories. Why doesn’t “God” come up?
On the largest scales, galaxies don’t simply clump together, but form superclusters. Too bad they don’t remain bound together.
The conversation you’re having with an LLM about groundbreaking new ideas in theoretical physics is completely meritless. Here’s why.
Somewhere, at some point in the history of our Universe, life arose. We’re evidence of that here on Earth, but many big puzzles remain.
Even just by examining the Moon with the unaided eye, we can learn an incredible amount about the Moon, Earth, and more.
The Big Bang was hot, dense, uniform, and filled with matter and energy. Before that? There was nothing. Here’s how that’s possible.
Realizing that matter and energy are quantized is important, but quantum particles aren’t the full story; quantum fields are needed, too.
With the right material at the right temperature and a magnetic track, physics really does allow perpetual motion without energy loss.
Whether you run the clock forward or backward, most of us expect the laws of physics to be the same. A 2012 experiment showed otherwise.
When the Hubble Space Telescope first launched in 1990, there was so much we didn’t know. Here’s how far we’ve come.
Once you cross a black hole’s event horizon, there’s no going back. But inside, could creating a singularity give birth to a new Universe?
From high school through the professional ranks, physicists still take incredible lessons away from Newton’s second law.
No matter what it is that we discover about reality, the fact that reality itself can be understood remains the most amazing fact of all.
With over 300 high-significance gravitational wave detections, we now have a huge unsolved puzzle. Will we invest in finding the solution?
Will we build a successor collider to the LHC? Someday, we’ll reach the true limit of what experiments can probe. But that won’t be the end.
The measured value of the cosmological constant is 120 orders of magnitude smaller than what’s predicted. How can this paradox be resolved?
65 million years ago, a massive asteroid struck Earth. Not only did Jupiter not stop it, but it most likely caused the impact itself.
Can the top quark, the shortest-lived particle of all, bind with anything else? Yes it can! New results at the LHC demonstrate toponium exists.
First ‘Oumuamua, then Borisov, and now ATLAS have shown us that interstellar interlopers are real. Here’s what the newest one teaches us.
Our nearby Ring Nebula, with JWST’s eyes, shows evidence for planet formation. Will the Sun eventually destroy, and then replace, the Earth?