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Big Bang Theory
The inevitable long, slow decline is accelerating, and there’s nothing we can do. The Universe, as it is today, is less active, is forming fewer stars, and is creating fewer chances […]
Time always moves in the same direction, but what if the Universe were contracting? As we step forward in time, a number of things always seem to happen together. Objects […]
We have two ways of measuring the expansion rate. Here’s the harder one. If you want to understand where our Universe came from and where it’s going, you need to measure […]
If you thought it was just one rich region in space, look deeper and wider. Shining brilliantly in January’s skies is the Great Orion Nebula. By 10 PM every night in […]
It might not feel that way, but a 95% dark Universe really is the best game in town. No matter how much we might try and hide it, there’s an enormous […]
If the multiverse is real, where does all the energy for it come from? One of the biggest scientific puzzles, even given our knowledge of the Big Bang, is to understand […]
Our ultimate fate depends on something we’ve barely begun to measure. One of the biggest mysteries in all of physics is dark energy. According to our best observations, the Universe cannot […]
And can scientists even agree on what ‘nothing’ means? The more curious we get about the great cosmic unknowns, the more unanswered questions our investigations of the Universe will reveal. […]
Entropy always increases, but that doesn’t mean it was zero to start with. One of the most inviolable laws in the Universe is the second law of thermodynamics: that in any […]
Once only dark energy remains, empty space still won’t be completely empty. Imagine, if you dare, the very end of the Universe. The stars — past, present, and future — have all burned out. […]
Are atoms, humans, planets, and galaxies destined to expand, too? One of the most revolutionary discoveries of the past century was the fact that the Universe is not eternally static and […]
And do our black holes give birth to baby Universes? When it comes to our understanding of the Universe, the 20th century was full of surprises. A little over 100 […]
And the Macho King, Randy Savage! Over this coming week, things will be quiet here at Starts With A Bang, as I’ll be taking the next week off. But to help […]
If we want our conclusions to be meaningful, our data had better be robust. When it comes to the Universe, there’s a whole lot that doesn’t add up. All the matter […]
Have we always had quantum fields in the Universe? Or did they emerge at some finite time? No matter how we look at the Universe — at low temperatures or ultra-high energies, from […]
Despite the claims of one of Earth’s newest Nobel Laureates, the data doesn’t lie. One of the greatest scientific successes of the past century was the theory of the hot Big […]
Why does dark matter, if it doesn’t dissipate energy, become gravitationally bound at all? One of the most puzzling components of the Universe has to be dark matter. Although we have […]
Is the “big freeze” our inevitable fate, or can dark energy save us? When we look out at the Universe today, we see sources of light practically everywhere we look. In […]
It wasn’t the birth of space and time. But it was truly essential to our cosmic story. For more than 50 years, we’ve had definitive scientific evidence that our Universe, as […]
California’s Bobcat Fire has reached Mount Wilson Observatory’s doorstep. 100 years ago, our understanding of the Universe was very different from what it is today. Einstein’s General Relativity, our theory […]
We may be different in many ways, but the cosmic story is the same for each of us. In all the Universe, you won’t find another planet identical to Earth. Planet […]
There are only 3 populations of stars, but “generations” is a more complex question. When we look out at the stars in the Universe, we classify them into three different […]
If they have mass, then why don’t we see any slow-moving ones? For decades, the neutrino was among the most puzzling and elusive of cosmic particles. It took more than […]
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope will truly usher in a new era of astronomy. If you want to find the very first galaxy of all, you have to understand not […]
The Big Bang started it all. And then we realized there was more. Of all the questions humanity has ever pondered, perhaps the most profound is, “where did all of this […]
As the Universe ages, will it eventually fade away entirely? The earliest signal we’ve ever directly detected from the Universe comes to us from shortly after the Big Bang: when […]
Some of them may have formed just 200 million years after the Big Bang. When we look out at the Universe, we’re not seeing objects as they are today, but rather […]
The history of the Universe is forever imprinted in our own bodies. We can learn a lot about the history of the Universe just by looking at each of our own […]
There’s a boundary to how far back we can observe everything that exists. Despite everything we’ve learned about our Universe, there are many existential questions that remain unanswered. We don’t know […]
How quickly is it expanding today, and how does that expansion rate change over time? What is the Universe made of? How quickly is it expanding today, and how does that […]