Search
Big Bang Theory
We can reasonably say that we understand the history of the Universe within one-trillionth of a second after the Big Bang. That's not good enough.
Archaeologists can learn how societies lived by studying what they left behind when they died. Astronomers are doing much the same thing.
The problem of the electroweak horizon haunts the standard model of cosmology and beckons us to ask how deep a rethink the model may need.
Before there were planets, stars, and galaxies, before even neutral atoms or stable protons, there was the Big Bang. How did we prove it?
The standard model of cosmology has a big new problem: Some galaxies seem to be too old.
What began as an annoyance ended as a Nobel Prize-winning discovery about the Big Bang and the origin of the Universe.
These high-mass, rapidly star-forming galaxies have called modern cosmology into question. But hi-res simulations show no tension at all.
How do physicists solve a problem like entropy?
Once the initial blaze of heat dissipated, the constituent particles of atoms were free to bind.
Finding out how the Universe grew up was the biggest science goal of JWST. This ultra-early proto-galaxy cluster is one amazing discovery.
What would become the Big Bang model started from a crucial idea: that the young Universe was denser and hotter.
With infrared capabilities and image sharpness far beyond Hubble's limits, JWST looked at Hubble's deepest field, revealing so much more.
For many years, some cosmologists embraced the idea of an eternal, steady state universe. But science triumphed over philosophical prejudice.
Einstein called his idea "abominable," but the world of physics came around to embracing the views of Georges Lemaître.
Leading a scientific revolution is easy: you just have to succeed where the current theory fails while equaling its successes. Good luck!
With a finite 13.8 billion years having passed since the Big Bang, there's an edge to what we can see: the cosmic horizon. What's it like?
If the evolution of the Universe is a movie, what happens when we rewind it all the way backward?
Many galaxies really are ultra-distant, but some are just intrinsically red or dusty. Only with spectroscopy can JWST tell which is which.
2023 is an exciting time for the study of quark-gluon plasmas.
When supermassive black holes merge, they emit more energy than anything else to occur in our Universe except the Big Bang.
If you're a massless particle, you must always move at light speed. If you have mass, you must go slower. So why aren't any neutrinos slow?
Dark energy is one of the biggest mysteries in all the Universe. Is there some way to avoid "having to live with it?"
Nobel Laureate Roger Penrose, famed for his work on black holes, claims we've seen evidence from a prior Universe. Only, we haven't.
From the Big Bang to dark energy, knowledge of the cosmos has sped up in the past century — but big questions linger.
It is a story with nebulous beginnings and no discernible end.
Generations ago, cosmologists asserted that the Universe might not just be the same in all directions, but at all times. But is that true?
A fascinating 90 minute podcast between Dr. Ivanna Escala and Ethan Siegel on Starts With A Bang!
From the earliest stages of the hot Big Bang (and even before) to our dark energy-dominated present, how and when did the Universe grow up?
In general relativity, white holes are just as mathematically plausible as black holes. Black holes are real; what about white holes?