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.

with Ethan Siegel
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
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Ethan Siegel

solar system model
For billions of years on Earth, life was limited to simple unicellular, non-differentiated organisms. In a mere flash, that changed forever.
Earth viewed from space, partially obscured by a graphical overlay illustrating how oxygen once nearly killed life.
Known as the Great Oxygenation Event, Earth froze over as oxygen accumulated in our atmosphere, nearly driving all life extinct.
A split image showing Emmy Noether with equations on the left, and a "before and after" physics diagram illustrating symmetry conserved quantity on the right.
First derived by Emmy Noether, for every symmetry a theory possesses, there's an associated conserved quantity. Here's the profound link.
standard model structure
A great many cosmic puzzles still remain unsolved. By embracing a broad and varied approach, particle physics heads toward a bright future.
A telescope dedicated to astronomy pointing towards a starry sky at night, with beams of light overcoming the atmosphere to create a visual path.
Lasers, mirrors, and computational advances can all work together to push ground-based astronomy past the limits of our atmosphere.
Even if you aren't in the path of totality, you can still use the solar eclipse to measure how long it takes the Moon to orbit Earth.
Solar total eclipse revealing the sun's pink chromosphere and prominences.
There are only a precious few minutes of totality during even the best solar eclipses. Don't waste yours making these avoidable mistakes.