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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solar system model
An artist's illustration of a supermassive black hole with an accretion disk and relativistic jets.
As early as we've been able to identify them, the youngest galaxies seem to have large supermassive black holes. Here's how they were made.
A stylized illustration of the timeline of the universe, depicting major events from the big bang through the cosmic dark ages to the modern era.
For 550 million years, neutral atoms blocked the light made in stars from traveling freely through the Universe. Here's how it then changed.
A digitally rendered image of a black hole with surrounding accretion disk and stars, depicting the era of the first galaxies.
Even after the first stars form, those overdense regions gravitationally attract matter and also merge. Here's how they grow into galaxies.
A vibrant image of a galaxy with clusters of population II stars, showing second-generation stars in various colors against the backdrop of space.
The first stars in the Universe were made of pristine material: hydrogen and helium alone. Once they die, nothing escapes their pollution.
Four different images of supernova remnants from NASA's Chandra X-ray observatory
The first stars took tens or even hundreds of millions of years to form, and then died in the cosmic blink of an eye. Here's how.
An artist's impression of a cluster of stars.
The Big Bang's hot glow faded away after only a few million years, leaving the Universe dark until the first stars formed. Oh, the changes!
The ring nebula in space.
The Universe is an amazing place. Under the incredible, infrared gaze of JWST, it's coming into focus better than ever before.