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.

A dense star field with dark, irregular dust clouds—where cosmic dust come from—obscures parts of the glowing stars in the Milky Way.
Dust is ubiquitous in the modern Universe, appearing in nearly all galaxies. But our cosmos was born dust-free. So where does it originate?
It's the origin of our entire observable Universe, but it's still not the very beginning of everything.
A dark, rocky planet orbits in space with the sun illuminating its edge, surrounded by stars and distant cosmic clouds.
The most common type of exoplanet is neither Earth-sized nor Neptune-sized, but in between. Could these haze-rich worlds house alien life?
Two identical, intricate, circular geometric patterns with symmetrical, multicolored lines and shapes are displayed side by side on a white background—each subtly reflecting the argument against theory of everything’s promise of perfect symmetry.
The Holy Grail of physics is a Theory of Everything: where a single equation describes the whole Universe. But maybe there simply isn't one?
Side-by-side comparison of the Pismis 24 nebula as seen by Hubble (top left) and JWST (bottom right), with an overlay highlighting image differences.
JWST isn't the first telescope to peer into this factory of star-birth some 5500 light-years away, but its views are the most educational.
A bright, circular blue and white object is centered against a black background, with a smaller red object to the lower left.
Going back to 1990, we hadn't even found one planet outside of our Solar System. As we close in on 6000, we now see many of them directly.
Abstract 3D geometric surface with intersecting translucent orange and brown planes, inspired by the amplituhedron theory of everything, set against a blurred orange background with white network lines.
Since even before Einstein, physicists have sought a theory of everything to explain the Universe. Can positive geometry lead us there?