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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.
Listen: Stellar streams and the dark Universe
In this all-new Starts With A Bang podcast episode, find out how stellar streams have the power to reveal the nature of dark matter.
Back in 2004, a supermassive black hole from 10.8 billion years ago was found, weighing in at 66 billion solar masses. How is this possible?
Two types of nanotechnology, metalenses and metamaterials, could soon make Star Trek's long-imagined "cloaking device" a reality.
The biggest question most often asked about dark matter is whether it exists. But astrophysically, we've long moved on to the next step.
JAXA's Martian Moons eXploration mission has just launched. The origin of Phobos and Deimos are at stake, with samples returning home soon.
The right kind of telescope can get us to our central black hole. But it took something extra to go all the way to seeing its event horizon.
While we now actively listen for aliens, we've never made an intentional long-term broadcast ourselves. What signal should we ideally send?
General relativity is incredibly difficult, both physically and mathematically. But all theorists need to learn it. Here's how to grok it.
In physics, things shouldn't need fine-tuning in order to match reality. Is naturalness a good guide toward an underlying explanation?
The Hubble "constant" isn't actually constant, evolving over both time and space. Will it ever become constant? That depends on dark energy.
Compared to the scale of the cosmos, a single human body might seem insignificant. But there's an entire Universe within each of us, too.
A huge obstacle for human bodies in space is that we fare poorly in zero/reduced gravity. Can two rotating, tethered capsules overcome that?
Despite being the innermost and most absorptive planet, Mercury "only" reaches 800 °F at its hottest. Venus is always hotter, even at night.
Back in 1988, Francis Halzen had what he called a "cute idea." His vision grew into the IceCube observatory, and earns the 2026 Nobel Prize.
Strong, durable Martian concrete needs a mix of small-grained Martian sand and pure sulfur. NASA found the ingredients are already there.
From base to tip, Mars's Olympus Mons is the highest known mountain in the Solar System. Evidence suggests a higher one could be out there.
From Hawking radiation, even black holes are expected to eventually decay. Do they ever reach a point where we'll see what's inside of them?
Are quantum fields real, or a mere calculational tool? 3 unique experiments show they carry energy. If energy's real, so are quantum fields.
Making more complicated, more precise predictive calculations tells us what real experiments should deliver. AI just surpassed humans at it.
The expanding Universe, CMB, and large-scale structure revealed the Big Bang. New nucleosynthesis advances deliver unprecedented precision.
The observable Universe is 92 billion light-years in diameter. These pictures put just how large that is in perspective.