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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.
Ask Ethan: What’s the biggest misconception in astronomy?
Many facts are well-known to professionals, but are unappreciated or even rejected outright by the public. "How stars work" takes the cake.
We first measured G, the gravitational constant, back in the 18th century. As the least well-known fundamental constant, can it be improved?
In 2017, a kilonova sent light and gravitational waves across the Universe. Here on Earth, there was a 1.7 second signal arrival delay. Why?
Dark matter, dark energy, and the Big Bang are all part of a solid scientific foundation. Here's why popular media often claims otherwise.
Planets grow from protostellar material in disks, leading to full-grown planetary systems in time. At last, the final gap has been filled.
Until the late 20th century, there wasn't a truly universal standard. Under our current definition, everyone agrees on what "one meter" is.
Do aliens speak the same physics that we do, with similar laws, observables, and underlying mathematics. Maybe not, argues Daniel Whiteson.
We've now detected hundreds of gravitational waves with LIGO, Virgo, and KAGRA. What if we tried Weber's original method in the modern day?
The first world beyond Earth for human habitability should be the Moon, not Mars. This is why we should terraform our lunar neighbor first.
Times dilate and lengths contract near the speed of light. Bizarre and confusing? Sure. But under relativity, it can't be any other way.
Stellar streams are faint trails of stars that appear to "stream" out of galaxies. A new one, escaping galaxy M61, may point to many others.
When dying, Sun-like stars have binary companions, spectacular sights arise from the ionization. JWST spots the Red Spider Nebula in action!
There's some, but not overwhelming, evidence that dark energy is evolving. What would it take for a "Big Crunch" to be our cosmic fate?
Scientists are notoriously resistant to new ideas. Are they falling prey to groupthink? Or are our current theories just that successful?
Physicist Daniel Whiteson challenges the notion that all intelligent species would eventually uncover the same laws of nature. Do you agree?
Nearly 100 years after being theorized, the strange behavior of the neutrino still mystifies us. They could be even stranger than we know.
The planet, the Solar System, and the galaxy aren't expanding. But the whole Universe is. So where does the dividing line begin?
For 13.8 billion years, the Universe has been expanding. But that couldn't have been the case for an eternity, and science has proven it.
Dark matter has never been directly detected, but the astronomical evidence for its existence is overwhelming. Here's what to know.
We've long known we can't go back to infinite temperatures and densities. But the hottest part of the hot Big Bang remains a cosmic mystery.
Red dwarfs are the Universe's most common star type. Their flaring now makes potentially Earth-like worlds uninhabitable, but just you wait.