December 19, 2015
"...in every kind of chemical change no loss of matter occurs [...] in all the varied modes of physical change, no loss of energy takes place." -Sir Henry Enfield Roscoe
When it comes to the physical laws of the Universe, perhaps the most unbreakable of all seems to be the law of conservation of…
December 17, 2015
“I just think too many nice things have happened in string theory for it to be all wrong. Humans do not understand it very well, but I just don’t believe there is a big cosmic conspiracy that created this incredible thing that has nothing to do with the real world.” -Edward Witten
String theory…
December 16, 2015
“For last year's words belong to last year's language And next year's words await another voice.” -T.S. Eliot
It's the end of the year, and so you know what that means: time for lazy recaps of "the year that was" everywhere you look. Why settle for last year's news, though, when you can start…
December 15, 2015
“I wasn’t destined to be an astronaut. I had to turn myself into one.” -Chris Hadfield
Many of us dream of becoming astronauts as a child, but give up on that dream for a number of reasons — the seemingly impossible odds, the demands of daily life, the rigors of preparation — and never even apply.…
December 14, 2015
"Youth is the gift of nature, but age is a work of art." -Stanislaw Jerzy Lec
When stars are born, it normally happens in groups of thousands or more, all at once. They range from just 8% the mass of our Sun, which are dim, red, and long-lived, to dozens or even hundreds of times as massive: the…
December 13, 2015
“The time will come when diligent research over long periods will bring to light things which now lie hidden. A single lifetime, even though entirely devoted to the sky, would not be enough for the investigation of so vast a subject... And so this knowledge will be unfolded only through long…
December 12, 2015
“"There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, [and] science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win, because it works."” -Stephen Hawking
Every week on Starts With A Bang brings with it a new set of considerations about the Universe we all…
December 12, 2015
"The farther we peer into space, the more we realize that the nature of the universe cannot be understood fully by inspecting spiral galaxies or watching distant supernovas. It lies deeper." -Robert Lanza
When you take a look at a spiral galaxy in the night sky, it seems obvious that the stars on…
December 11, 2015
“I just think too many nice things have happened in string theory for it to be all wrong. Humans do not understand it very well, but I just don’t believe there is a big cosmic conspiracy that created this incredible thing that has nothing to do with the real world.” -Ed Witten
If you calculate the…
December 10, 2015
“Did you ever read my words, or did you merely finger through them for quotations which you thought might valuably support an already conceived idea concerning some old and distorted connection between us?” -Audre Lorde
One of the most damning, albeit accurate, condemnations of String Theory that…
December 9, 2015
“You are the salt of the earth. But remember that salt is useful when in association, but useless in isolation.” -Israelmore Ayivor
When NASA's Dawn spacecraft began photographing Ceres, one big surprise emerged: the presence of a spectacularly and unusually bright spot at the bottom of Occator…
December 9, 2015
"We cannot be vengeful. We need to find pono [righteous] solutions. We need to find good things for astronomers. Cooperation is, I think, really the true part of our human nature, not competition. I think we have to go back to cooperation to survive the future." -Kealoha Pisciotta, president of …
December 8, 2015
"Mars is much closer to the characteristics of Earth. It has a fall, winter, summer and spring. North Pole, South Pole, mountains and lots of ice. No one is going to live on Venus; no one is going to live on Jupiter." -Buzz Aldrin
When we think about life in the Universe, we think about Earth-like…
December 7, 2015
"It will be found that those contained in one article [class of nebulae], are so closely allied to those in the next, that there is perhaps not so much difference between them, if I may use the comparison, as there would be in an annual description of the human figure, were it given from the birth…
December 6, 2015
“Every moment of light and dark is a miracle.” -Walt Whitman
Every once in a while, the Earth hurtles through the orbital path of a comet or asteroid, with the Sun having torn tiny bits of debris from the parent body. As a result, the Earth strikes these dusty fragments at speeds often exceeding a…
December 5, 2015
“Pluto was part of their mental landscape, the one they had constructed to organize their thinking about the solar system and their own place within it. Pluto seemed like the edge of existence. Ripping Pluto out of that landscape caused what felt like an inconceivably empty hole.” -Mike Brown
We…
December 5, 2015
"Maybe that is our mistake: maybe there are no particle positions and velocities, but only waves. It is just that we try to fit the waves to our preconceived ideas of positions and velocities. The resulting mismatch is the cause of the apparent unpredictability." -Stephen Hawking
Black holes are…
December 4, 2015
"We've learned that the view of four inner rocky planets and four outer gas giants and one misfit Pluto is wrong. Now we understand Pluto's context." -Alan Stern
After a 9 year journey to Pluto, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft made its closest approach to Pluto this past July, taking so much data…
December 4, 2015
"The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity." -Harlan Ellison
Shortly after the Big Bang, the Universe was filled with 99.99999993% hydrogen and helium, with the rest being lithium. But stars change everything, by fusing those elements -- the lightest ones -- into…
December 3, 2015
"After 20 years of exploring planets as big as Jupiter around other suns, we still have a lot of questions left open. For instance, we don’t understand what is the physical mechanism that forms Jupiter-like planets with orbital periods as little as a few days." -Alexandre Santerne
By surveying an…
December 2, 2015
"A dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant may see farther than a giant himself." -Robert Burton
Both the internal motions of individual galaxies and the wholesale motions of galaxies within clusters require much more mass than normal matter — protons, neutrons and electrons — can account for:…
November 30, 2015
"Lots of science fiction deals with distant times and places. Intrepid prospectors in the Asteroid Belt. Interstellar epics. Galactic empires. Trips to the remote past or future." -Edward M. Lerner
Of all the asteroids we've ever discovered, it's arguably the very first one, Ceres, that's got the…
November 29, 2015
"No one regards what is before his feet; we all gaze at the stars." -Quintus Ennius
For the space, science or astronomy enthusiast, there's nothing like looking up at the Universe with your own eyes and discovering it. But during the day, while you're seated at your desk, office or computer, many…
November 28, 2015
“At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.” -Albert Schweitzer
It was an action-packed week here at Starts With A Bang, where we took on all of the following:
How…
November 27, 2015
"We are not like the social insects. They have only the one way of doing things and they will do it forever, coded for that way. We are coded differently, not just for binary choices, go or no-go. We can go four ways at once, depending on how the air feels: go, no-go, but also maybe, plus what the…
November 26, 2015
“We live in an atmosphere of shame. We are ashamed of everything that is real about us; ashamed of ourselves, of our relatives, of our incomes, of our accents, of our opinions, of our experience, just as we are ashamed of our naked skins.” –George Bernard Shaw
On this Thanksgiving day, we're…
November 25, 2015
"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning." -Albert Einstein
While it's easy to look on Einstein's general theory of relativity — which turns 100 today — as a revolutionary new way to interpret space and time, as well as their interplay…
November 24, 2015
"Few enterprises of great labor or hazard would be undertaken if we had not the power of magnifying the advantages we expect from them." -Samuel Johnson
Dark matter may make up 27% of the Universe's energy density, compared to just 5% of normal (atomic) matter, but in our Solar System, it's…
November 23, 2015
"It may be that ultimately the search for dark matter will turn out to be the most expensive and largest null result experiment since the Michelson-Morley experiment, which failed to detect the ether." -John Moffat
Dark matter is a puzzle that's now more than 80 years old: the presence of all the…
November 22, 2015
"It's almost like I feel I'm just moving there, and I'm not coming back." -Scott Kelly
On his 233rd day in space, ISS astronaut Scott Kelly took a photo that's since gone viral of the Earth at night, showing a number of cities in India and a star field above the planet's atmosphere and airglow.…
