Starts With A Bang

A dense starfield, with various colored stars shimmering through a dark cloud-like formation, lies against a deep black background in the mysterious zone of avoidance.
The Universe is out there, waiting to be discovered

Our mission is to answer the biggest questions of all, scientifically.

What is the 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 most of human history, these questions had no clear answers. Today, they do. Starts With a Bang, written by Dr. Ethan Siegel, explores what we know about the universe and how we came to know it, bringing the latest discoveries in cosmology and astrophysics directly to you.

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Ethan Siegel is an award-winning PhD astrophysicist and the author of four books, including The Grand Cosmic Story, published by National Geographic.

Full Profile
A bald man with a long beard and handlebar mustache gestures with his hands against a backdrop of an upside-down cityscape wearing a purple shirt.
Scatter plot with dark blue data points and black dashed elliptical contours centered on the origin, with axes labeled ξ (') horizontally and vertically—similar to plots used by astronomers in studies of the smallest galaxy ever discovered.
With stars, gas, and dark matter, galaxies come in a great array of sizes. This new one, Ursa Major III/UNIONS 1, is the smallest by far.
Astro2020
NASA astrophysics, which gave us Hubble, JWST, and so much more, faces its greatest budget cut in history. All future missions are at risk.
Diagram of the solar system with gravitational waves emanating from a distant bright source, and a triangular spacecraft array detecting the waves in space.
Just 10 years ago, humanity had never directly detected a single gravitational wave. We're closing in on 300 now, with so much more to come!
dark energy accelerated expansion
The fact that our Universe's expansion is accelerating implies that dark energy exists. But could it be even weirder than we've imagined?
symmetry
The laws of physics obey certain symmetries and defy others. It's theoretically tempting to add new ones, but reality doesn't agree.
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For centuries, vaccines have been the top life-saving, expert medical intervention known to humans. How can individuals make the right call?
baryon acoustic oscillations
It took nearly 400,000 years, after the Big Bang, to first form neutral atoms. The imprints from that early time can now be seen everywhere.