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.
Groupthink in science isn’t a problem; it’s a myth
Scientists are notoriously resistant to new ideas. Are they falling prey to groupthink? Or are our current theories just that successful?

Ethan Siegel

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Straddling the bounds of science and religion, Newton wondered who set the planets in motion. Astrophysics reveals the answer.
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How do normal matter and dark matter separate by so much when galaxy clusters collide? Astronomers find the surprising, unexpected answer.
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Even in the very early Universe, there were heavy, supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies. How did they get so big so fast?
Often viewed as a purely theoretical, calculational tool only, direct observation of the Lamb Shift proved their very real existence.