Our first terraforming goal should be the Moon, not Mars When we speak about terraforming, Mars is usually the prime target. But the Moon, due to its proximity, Earth-like soil, and much much more, is a far superior first target. bigthink.com/starts-with-... #space #moon #astro #terraforming

How to understand Einstein’s relativity without math Relativity is so much more than just the math of the Lorentz transformations. It's a profound new way of looking at the world: one that you can learn to intuit for yourself. bigthink.com/starts-with-... #space #astro #physics #relativity

Astounding stream of stars caught escaping from nearby galaxy The Vera Rubin Observatory's "First Look" observations weren't meant for science. And yet, it revealed a surprising new stellar stream, 160,000 light-years long, escaping from a nearby galaxy. bigthink.com/starts-with-... #space #astro

Fascism has 14 early warning signs, as elucidated by fascism scholar Laurence W. Britt. In May of this year, the US exhibited "only" 12 of them, as we still lacked a censored press and fraudulent elections. We're up to 13 on the eve of election day. Because if you tell the truth, this happens.

The Red Spider Nebula gets its JWST glow-up The US Government may still be shut down, preventing NASA from releasing, well, anything. Good thing the ESA, a #JWST partner, is still functioning, because now we get to see this. bigthink.com/starts-with-... #space #astronomy #astro #science #physics

Happy Halloween 2025 everyone, from your old pal Zorak!

Could evolving dark energy lead to a Big Crunch? #AskEthan It looks like dark energy *may* be evolving in our Universe, as recent DESI data suggests. But implying that we're headed for a Big Crunch completely oversells what we know. bigthink.com/starts-with-... #space #astro #darkenergy

Why the whole isn't greater than the sum of its parts | Ethan Siegel @startswithabang.bsky.social If the list of things science can’t explain keeps shrinking…should we stop creating gods to fill the gaps?

Groupthink in science isn’t a problem; it’s a myth Scientists get accused of groupthink all the time, and of being unnecessarily resistant to new ideas. But that's a myth. The real problem is just how successful our current theories are. bigthink.com/starts-with-... #science #space #physics #myth

Why aliens might not “speak physics” the same way we do If an alien species achieved interstellar communication or even interstellar travel, can we assume they've developed the same laws of physics as us? Maybe not, and here's why. bigthink.com/starts-with-... #physics #aliens #space #nature

Neutrinos are still the most mysterious particle we know of Everyone overlooks the neutrino as an afterthought in our Universe. But they're the only Standard Model particle with a shot to solve the dark matter, dark energy, and baryogenesis puzzles. bigthink.com/starts-with-... #physics #neutrinos

Where does the expanding Universe begin? The Universe doesn't expand everywhere: the space within our atoms, planet, Solar System, galaxy, and Local Group aren't expanding. So where does that cosmic expansion begin? bigthink.com/starts-with-... #space #astronomy #universe #expansion

Could the Universe have been expanding forever? #AskEthan The Universe is expanding today, and looks like it will do so forever. But was it expanding eternally into the past as well? Most physicists think "no," and this theorem explains why. bigthink.com/starts-with-... #space #physics #astro

5 undeniable, truthful facts about dark matter There are always people promoting their own (shoddy) "alternative" ideas to dark matter. These five undeniable truths box those alternatives into a corner they can't escape from. (Yes, that one too!) bigthink.com/starts-with-... #space #astro #physics

We still don’t know how “hot” the hot Big Bang was The earliest stages of the hot Big Bang were far hotter than any conditions that exist in the Universe today. But things weren't arbitrarily hot; here's what we do (and don't) know today. bigthink.com/starts-with-... #space #astro #physics

Red dwarfs aren’t uninhabitable; we’re just impatient No life, as far as we know, could survive on the conditions found on exoplanets around red dwarf stars. But after many billions of years pass by, perhaps all that will change? bigthink.com/starts-with-... #space #astro #life #reddwarf

Is our first “galaxy-quasar hybrid” also a Little Red Dot? JWST has famously discovered hundreds of "Little Red Dot" objects in the early Universe. But the first one predates JWST, and was correctly determined to be a galaxy-quasar hybrid bigthink.com/starts-with-... #space #astro #jwst #hubble

Is the Hubble tension the same thing as dark energy? #AskEthan The Hubble tension is a big cosmic puzzle. Dark energy might be evolving, and still remains mysterious. But these two problems aren't the same. Here's what makes them distinct. bigthink.com/starts-with-... #space #astro #cosmology

Ethan's piece on Reflect Orbital is today's required reading — he covers ✨every single reason🪩 giant mirrors in space is a bad idea!

I haven't even read this article yet and I like it! And I'm not surprised that Ethan is the one to write it.

Must there be a single, unified theory of everything? Daniel Whiteson and Kelly Weinersmith interview me about the topic, and things get a little intense! Have a listen and see which side of the problem sounds more compelling to you. www.iheart.com/podcast/105-... #physics

Yes, reductionism can explain everything in the whole Universe If we strip reality down to the fundamental particles and their interactions, and add in boundary conditions and initial conditions, can we explain the whole Universe? Reductionism says yes bigthink.com/starts-with-... #space #physics

If you haven't ever heard this Sam Cooke classic, it's just as relevant as ever. A change IS gonna come. www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEBl...

The true cost of “solar power at night” with Reflect Orbital If you played SimCity 2000, you might've loved the idea of "beaming power from space" down to Earth. Reflect Orbital took that idea, tech-bro'd it, and now could end "night" as we know it. bigthink.com/starts-with-... #space #astro

The Reflect Orbital space mirror project is really picked apart by @startswithabang.bsky.social in this Big Think article. The numbers required make the project infeasible and there are big risks including eye damage and the Kessler Syndrome. bigthink.com/starts-with-...

Cosmic inflation’s biggest criticisms can’t undermine its success There are always lots of arguments to be made against a leading scientific theory. But good ones? Take a close look at the ones against inflation, & see how weak-sauce they are. bigthink.com/starts-with-... #space #physics #astro

How to see shooting stars from Halley’s comet this October The biggest meteor showers of the year are usually the Perseids and Geminids. But this October, a new moon gives the Orionids a true chance to shine, with meteors from Halley's comet itself. bigthink.com/starts-with-... #space #astro

When the chips were down, did you flatter the powerful or stick up for the marginalized? Your answer matters more than ever.

Dorothy Thompson would've said, "this one goes Nazi" after 15 seconds at a cocktail party with her. When you line up behind the other ones, you tell on yourself.

Starts With A Bang podcast #122 – Galaxy evolution and JWST How do galaxies grow up all across the Universe? Looking both wide and deep, like COSMOS-Web has done, gives us unprecedented insights, and so does out guest: Dr. Olivia Cooper! bigthink.com/starts-with-... #space #astro #podcast #SWAB

How many generations of stars came before the Sun? #AskEthan There are three stellar populations: Population I, for Sun-like stars, Population II, for metal-poor stars, and Population III, for the first stars. Does that mean we're a 3rd generation star? bigthink.com/starts-with-... #space #astro

400 years later, astronomers finally understand Saturn’s rings Saturn's rings have been a mystery for a long time. We now know they're under 200 million years old, and an idea from 2022 just might explain their origin, and a whole lot more. bigthink.com/starts-with-... #saturn #space #astro

How much do you wanna bet he's not talking about "single payer" or "nationalized healthcare," which would be the only two solutions that would actually be higher quality and lower cost?

Macroscopic quantum tunneling wins 2025’s Nobel Prize in physics This year's Nobel Prize in physics was all about building the first sustainable macroscopic system to exhibit quantum behavior. Here's the science behind the prize, and why it matters. bigthink.com/starts-with-... #physics #quantum

Today is the day! The Grand Cosmic Story, my newest book (with Jon Lomberg, Mark Garlick, and Will Lidwell), from National Geographic, is released! Get the history of the whole Universe, one page and 100 Myr at a time, today! amzn.to/46GsS9d www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/789623... #space #book

The search for alien life must heed this lesson from Stephen King In Stephen King's "The Stand," survivors of the Captain Trips superflu are rare, and finding a second survivor doesn't always occur. Here's what that lesson means for seeking alien life. bigthink.com/starts-with-... #space #astro

COSMOS-Web unveils JWST’s newest gravitational lenses Within JWST's largest-area survey so far, the COSMOS-Web field, there are over 100 newly imaged gravitational lenses. Here are the sights, and surprises, lying within. bigthink.com/starts-with-... #space #jwst #astro

How and when will the Universe die? #AskEthan Ever since the discovery of dark energy, astronomers have been secure in predicting the heat death of our Universe. But if dark energy is changing, as DESI data suggests, are all bets off? bigthink.com/starts-with-... #space #cosmology #astro

You can learn more about journalism, ethics, and the world of reporting by reading Karen Attiah than you can by reading everything else by everyone working at the Washington Post today.

What do distant observers see when they look at Earth? If a distant observer takes a look back at Earth, what would they see? They'd see a more primitive version of our planet, of course, and beyond a certain distance, no Earth at all. bigthink.com/starts-with-... #space #astro #Earth

RIP to the one and only Jane Goodall, who has finally embarked on what she promised just a short while ago would be her "next great adventure" here: www.youtube.com/shorts/XeXNK...

Thousands of NASA employees to bid farewell to the NASA they knew Yes, NASA science is being destroyed, and the NASA we know is actively in the process of being gutted. Here are the receipts. bigthink.com/starts-with-... #space #astro #nasa #usa

The “atom” lost its original meaning, and that’s good for science First proposed more than 2400 years ago, the idea of the "atom" was an uncuttable, indivisible building block to all reality. So why do we still call our composite structures atoms, then? bigthink.com/starts-with-... #physics #atom

The 5 biggest mysteries about the origin of our Universe We know more than ever before about the beginning stages of our Universe's history. But five huge puzzles, from the first stars to the origin of matter to the nature of inflation, still remain. bigthink.com/starts-with-... #space #bigbang

Mark is one of my favorite illustrators, and I use (and link to) his work in my newsletter often. Ethan is also a great writer, so I expect this book will be wonderful.

As the author of the book that @markgarlick.com and Jon Lomberg co-illustrated, the opportunity to get a free, frameable art masterwork along with the extraordinary book is a bonus that will catch your eye, day after day, and make you ponder both the remarkable knowns and unknowns of existence.

Where are we located relative to the Big Bang? #AskEthan The Big Bang didn't occur at a single location in space, but rather, everywhere at once. If we assumed it was a big ka-boom, we'd be shockingly close to its origin point. bigthink.com/starts-with-... #space #astro #bigbang #notanexplosion

Now is absolutely the perfect time to preorder my newest book, The Grand Cosmic Story from National Geographic, coming out in just 2 weeks! Do it now at this link - promo.porchlightbooks.com/pages/promot... - and get a FREE bonus frameable print of the unique artwork in the book!

Even before the Big Bang, space wasn’t truly empty Before the Big Bang, space was inflating, devoid of matter and antimatter particles. But even still, it wasn't truly empty, and the existence of a cosmic horizon explains why. bigthink.com/starts-with-... #space #bigbang #physics #astro

The strongest evidence for a Universe before the Big Bang Louder, for those of you in the back who've been willfully covering your ears: the Big Bang wasn't the beginning, and we have some damn good evidence supporting that conclusion! bigthink.com/starts-with-... #space #physics #bigbang