Comments of the Week

"I think that Walter Schirra aboard Mercury 8 was the first of the astronauts to use the code name 'Santa Claus' to indicate the presence of flying saucers next to space capsules." -Maurice Chatelain Well, here we are: December 25th, Christmas day, here at Starts With A Bang! Whether you're a Santa, a Scrooge or anywhere in between when it comes to the generosity of your holiday spirit, I've got some good things for you. First, there's a brand new Starts With A Bang podcast for you to enjoy, on whether our Universe itself could be the inside of a black hole. And second, as usual, there's a…

"You're not looking for perfection in your partner. Perfection is all about the ego. With soulmate love, you know that true love is what happens when disappointment sets in - and you're willing to deal maturely with these disappointments." -Karen Salmansohn It's been a great week full of great stories from the Universe here at Starts With A Bang! The topic for the next podcast has been chosen and you should get to see it all next week: on whether our Universe is the inside of a black hole or not! (It's a fun one; you won't want to miss it!) Most of us were clouded out of the Geminids, but…

“They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” -Andy Warhol Any week that passes by that leaves you knowing more than when you started is a good one here at Starts With A Bang! I hope this past week didn't disappoint, as many of you became acquainted not only with our latest podcast on parallel Universes, but with some amazing new articles on science and the Universe. Even as the year winds down, there's plenty more to explore! Here's what the past week held: How do gravitational waves escape from a black hole? (for Ask Ethan), An X-ray surprise! When…

“A thing may be of deeper impossibility than another, in the sense that you can be more deeply underwater–but whether you are five feet or five fathoms from the surface you are still all wet.” -Brian McGreevy It's been a spectacular week of investigating the Universe and our knowledge about it here at Starts With A Bang! There were a great many of you wondering about parallel Universes over the past month, and that's exactly -- in the context of quantum physics and cosmic inflation -- what this past month's Starts With A Bang podcast was on. Check it out! This past week also saw a fantastic…

“A thing may be of deeper impossibility than another, in the sense that you can be more deeply underwater--but whether you are five feet or five fathoms from the surface you are still all wet.” -Brian McGreevy With everything going on in the world, it's always a wonderful reminder that here at Starts With A Bang! we're eternally focused on the cosmic story of what we know and how we know it. Regardless of what direction you want to push society, increasing our knowledge and understanding ought to be one thing we all agree on. This past week, here's a look back at what we've covered: What's…

“The universe is asymmetric and I am persuaded that life, as it is known to us, is a direct result of the asymmetry of the universe or of its indirect consequences. The universe is asymmetric.” -Louis Pasteur Time keeps barreling forward for all of us, but I'm so pleased that Starts With A Bang! still keeps on taking on some of the biggest and smallest questions about physics, astronomy and the Universe as it related to humanity. There were a number of grandiose, challenging topics we took on this week, including: What if gravity isn't really fundamental? (for Ask Ethan), Top five features…

"For me, insanity is super sanity. The normal is psychotic. Normal means lack of imagination, lack of creativity." -Jean Dubuffet It's been a week unlike any other I've seen since I started Starts With A Bang! all those years ago. There are a lot of people looking for a lot of explanations -- some are excited, many are terrified, most are disappointed -- about the direction the USA and the world are headed. I might not have the answers, but perhaps taking a look at the Universe will help put some things in perspective. Have a look back at what we've discussed and thought about this past week…

"Computers don't make mistakes. What they do, they do on purpose." -Dale Gribble, King of the Hill Alright, so I know you're all impatient with the most burning Starts With A Bang! question of all: what was Ethan for Halloween? Well, without further ado, I'd like to introduce you to my avatar for the next 12 months: King Triton from Disney's The Little Mermaid! With that said, I'm already thinking about the next Starts With A Bang podcast (maybe on parallel Universes?) and heading to the finish line of my next book, Treknology, about the real-life science behind the technological advances…

“Weightlessness was unbelievable. It's physical euphoria: Nothing about you has any weight. You don't realize that you are weighed down all the time by yourself, and your organs, and your head. Your arms weigh down your shoulders. In space simulation, you get to fly like Superman! You're hanging in the air! It's the coolest thing.” -Mary Roach As October comes to an end, the nights grow longer (at least in the northern hemisphere) and Halloween approaches. There are wonders all around us, and the need to separate good science from bad. There's plenty in the rear-view mirror, like this month’s…

"Ships that could circumnavigate the galaxy in a few years, and count every cell in your body from light-years off, but he wasn't able to go back one miserable day and alter one tiny, stupid, idiotic, shameful decision..." -Iain Banks And while we can't travel back in time at all to change the actions or events of the past, our incomplete knowledge of the past can always be improved as we move forward. This month's Starts With A Bang podcast is one of the most fun of all, as we cover how we went from mere lower limit estimates of how many galaxies are in the Universe to the first true,…

“There are in fact 100 billion galaxies, each of which contain something like a 100 billion stars. Think of how many stars, and planets, and kinds of life there may be in this vast and awesome universe.” -Carl Sagan And at long last, Carl Sagan's estimates are finally out of date. It's not ~100 billion galaxies, but a number more like two trillion, and at last we know! If you wanted to know what the topic of this month's Starts With A Bang podcast was going to be, there's your answer! Look for it sometime over the next two weeks. Of course, none of that has changed what we write about here at…

“Life and death matters, yes. And the question of how to behave in this world, how to go in the face of everything. Time is short and the water is rising.” -Raymond Carver As we make our way through October, Halloween approaches here at Starts With A Bang! But as eerie as the world and our Universe might be, our goal is always to shed a little light into how we know the things we do, and what the possibilities beyond our knowledge might be. Take a look back on this past week in case you missed anything: Why don't we shoot Earth's garbage into the Sun? (for Ask Ethan), Astronomy's dark horse…

“Put two ships in the open sea, without wind or tide, and, at last, they will come together. Throw two planets into space, and they will fall one on the other. Place two enemies in the midst of a crowd, and they will inevitably meet; it is a fatality, a question of time; that is all.” -Jules Verne As the final three months of the year begin, it’s again time to look back on the past week here at Starts With A Bang! Lots of exciting stories were met with a number of interesting and provocative comments, which is what I always like to see. Here's what we covered, in case you missed anything:…

“To study things from a scientific standpoint means to take an inventory of them—to find the process in which they are being produced; to connect them with other things; to see things in their causal process. ” -William Harris As is pretty much always the case, it's been a big week here at Starts With A Bang! So much of what we wrote about has inspired thoughts and conversations I never could have imagined on my own, and if you missed any of what we've covered, take a look back at: How small is an elementary particle? (for Ask Ethan), Dark matter proved real by colliding galaxy clusters (for…

“We must free ourselves of the hope that the sea will ever rest. We must learn to sail in high winds.” -Aristotle Onassis Welcome back to the end of another big week at Starts With A Bang! There's been a lot of fantastic stories that have gone down, including: Can stars escape from the galaxy, with planets intact? (for Ask Ethan), Fossilized relic discovered by Hubble is a link to the Milky Way's past (for Mostly Mute Monday), Is the cosmic distance ladder flawed?, That's no comet; that's Pluto!, How certain are we of the Universe's 'Big Freeze' fate, and Was Earth born with life already on…

“With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably.” -Aaron Satie, Star Trek It’s been a remarkable week at Starts With A Bang, and I'm especially proud of the stories we've run on Proxima b, Hubble's limits, the dream of Warp Drive and the Cosmic Neutrino background. If you missed any of them (or any of the others), here's what the past week has held: When will the Sun make Earth uninhabitable? (for Ask Ethan), What is the biggest black hole as seen from Earth? (for Mostly Mute Monday), Ten…

"We meet aliens every day who have something to give us. They come in the form of people with different opinions." -William Shatner It’s been another big week here at Starts With A Bang, with stories covering the Universe near and far. Although the biggest announcements seemed to shatter our picture of how things are, this week was all about keeping it in perspective. There are lots of ideas -- good and bad -- floating around, but in the end, data and experiments will be the ultimate arbiter. Here’s what we've covered over the past week: How do we know the Universe is 13.8 billion years old…

"Because practical applications are so remote, many people assume we should not be interested. But this quest to understand the world is what defines us as human beings." -Yuri Milner It’s been another big week here at Starts With A Bang, with stories covering the Universe near and far. First off, thanks to our generous Patreon supporters, we have a brand new podcast live today, on whether the Big Bang was really the beginning of the Universe. It's 19 minutes of your life well spent, trust me. There are lots of amazing things that happened, including a candidate for "story of the year" (so…

"...even if we don't understand each other, that's not a reason to reject each other. There are two sides to any argument. Is there one point of view that has all the answers? Give it some thought." -Alder, from Pokémon It’s been a fantastic week here at Starts With A Bang, with stories ranging from the beginning of the Universe to how we do business here on Earth in 2016. We've got a topic picked out for our next podcast on SoundCloud, on the Big Bang and what it does (and doesn't) mean, plus I'll be recording a radio show with Dr. David Livingston of The Space Show this Tuesday night!…

“Even though the future seems far away, it is actually beginning right now.” -Mattie Stepanek It's been a fantastic week here at Starts With A Bang, where we've covered even more ground than normal! First off, for those of you not following me on SoundCloud, we've got a new science podcast out, on the last star in the Universe. Have a listen and enjoy; that's all possible thanks to the generous donations of our Patreon supporters, as are the re-runs of each article, ad-free, on a 7-day delay over on Medium. Here were the new pieces of this past week: Will the 'Great Attractor' defeat dark…