The Beginning of the Universe and the Limit of Knowledge
Posted by Ethan on April 19, 2013 
“Despite its name, the big bang theory is not really a theory of a bang at all. It is really only a theory of the aftermath of a bang.” -Alan Guth So you finally understand it. The Big Bang tells us that the Universe was hotter, denser, and expanding at a faster rate in the…
What Makes Up The Universe?
Posted by Ethan on April 18, 2013 
“The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us—there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, or falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.” -Carl…
Missions to Mars and Nuclear Fusion
Posted by Ethan on April 17, 2013 
“We are much closer today to being able to send humans to Mars than we were to being able to send men to the moon in 1961, and we were there eight years later. Given the will, we could have humans on Mars within a decade.” -Robert Zubrin Of all the planets in the Solar…
Messier Monday: The Whirlpool Galaxy, M51
Posted by Ethan on April 15, 2013 
“Upon one occasion, while engaged upon a seven-foot mirror, he did not remove his hands from it for 16 hours together.” -from Caroline Herschel’s obituary Welcome to another Messier Monday here on Starts With A Bang! Each Monday, we highlight a different one of the 110 deep-sky objects that Messier catalogued so that comet-hunters wouldn’t confuse these permanent…
Weekend Diversion: Stop-Motion Post-Its!
Posted by Ethan on April 13, 2013 
“There is an energy with stop-motion that you can’t even describe. It’s got to do with giving things life… to give life to something that doesn’t have it is cool, and even more so in three dimensions, because, at least for me, it feels even more real.” -Tim Burton Of course we always like to…
Inflation, Dark Energy, and the Physics of Spacetime
Posted by Ethan on April 12, 2013 
“Orbiting Earth in spaceship, I saw how beautiful our planet is. People, let us preserve and increase beauty, not destroy it!” -Yuri Gagarin Fifty-two years ago today, the first human being left Earth, and we began our journey into outer space. But back in 1961, we didn’t really know how far outer space stretched, or…
What Matters about Dark Matter?
Posted by Ethan on April 10, 2013 
“A cosmic mystery of immense proportions, once seemingly on the verge of solution, has deepened and left astronomers and astrophysicists more baffled than ever. The crux… is that the vast majority of the mass of the universe seems to be missing.” -William J. Broad Three classic observations — the Hubble expansion of the Universe, the…
Messier Monday: A Dusty Open Cluster for Everyone, M25
Posted by Ethan on April 8, 2013 
“The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.” -Henry David Thoreau Welcome to another Messier Monday here on Starts With A Bang! Each week, we take a look at the…
Weekend Diversion: A Small Step Towards Acceptance
Posted by Ethan on April 7, 2013 
“Acceptance is not love. You love a person because he or she has lovable traits, but you accept everybody just because they’re alive and human.” -Albert Ellis In my experience as a human being, I’ve seen far too often what evils can come from judging people who are different from you and the groups you…
Long for the Stars
Posted by Ethan on April 5, 2013 
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.” -Antoine de Saint-Exupery The Universe has been around for a long time: 13.8 billion years, to be precise. As humans, we’re…
