Ethan Siegel

Ethan Siegel

A theoretical astrophysicist and science writer, host of popular podcast “Starts with a Bang!”

Ethan Siegel 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.

In partisan political times, recognizing the scientific truth is more important than ever. Scientists must be vocal and clear about reality.
pulsar orbiting a low-mass star in an X-ray binary system
In astronomy, a star's initial mass determines its ultimate outcome in life. Unless, that is, a stellar companion alters the deal.
Bright cosmic explosion with flames and smoke surrounded by stars against a dark, starry background.
Black holes are the most massive individual objects, spanning up to a light-day across. So how do they make jets that affect the cosmic web?
wormholes
Humans, when we consider space travel, recognize the need for gravity. Without our planet, is artificial or antigravity even possible?
A Rubik's cube with a red X floats in space, next to a planet and moon—each marked with green checkmarks—that boast their perfect round shape.
All the stars, stellar corpses, planets, and other large, massive objects take on spherical or spheroidal shapes. Why is that universal?
A robotic hand and a human hand reach towards each other, with a glowing DNA helix in the background, symbolizing humanity's last exam in the intersection of technology and biology.
A crowdsourced "final exam" for AI promises to test LLMs like never before. Here's how the idea, and its implementation, dooms us to fail.
Comparison of a star's image, Vega, as taken by the Hubble Telescope (left, with starburst pattern) and the JWST (right, with clear circular halo).
The 5th brightest star in our night sky is young, blue, and apparently devoid of massive planets. New JWST observations deepen the mystery.