November 14, 2014
“Sometimes, I sit alone under the stars
and think of the galaxies inside my
heart, and truly wonder if anyone will
ever want to make sense of all that
I am.” -Testy McTesterson
The largest galaxies in the Universe all have a few things in common: they all contain many trillions of stars, they all…
November 13, 2014
“I asked the Zebra,
are you black with white stripes?
Or white with black stripes?
And the zebra asked me,
Are you good with bad habits?
Or are you bad with good habits?
Are you noisy with quiet times?
Or are you quiet with noisy times?
Are you happy with some sad days?
Or are you sad with some…
November 12, 2014
“I must trust that the little bit of love that I sow now will bear many fruits, here in this world and the life to come.” -Henri Nouwen
So, maybe you've been living under a rock, but whether you have or haven't, the news is still amazing: we've just landed on our first not-a-rock in space, but…
November 11, 2014
When our science fiction fills our heads with ideas that could make our lives tremendously improved, we like to believe it's only a matter of time before technology catches up with our imaginations. Indeed, tricorders, wireless communicators and rocket ships were just some of the breakthroughs…
November 10, 2014
“If there is nothing new under the sun, at least the sun itself is always new, always re-creating itself out of its own inexhaustible fire.” -Michael Sims
It takes the death of old stars to create the newer generations of stars in the Universe, and it's through the very act of that stellar death…
November 7, 2014
“In my dreams and visions, I seemed to see a line, and on the other side of that line were green fields, and lovely flowers, and beautiful white ladies, who stretched out their arms to me over the line, but I couldn’t reach them no-how. I always fell before I got to the line.” -Harriet Tubman
One…
November 6, 2014
“It is not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, that the lover of knowledge is reluctant to step into its waters.” -Friedrich Nietzsche
Out beyond Neptune, the last of our Solar System's gas giants, the icy graveyard of failed planetesimals lurks: the Kuiper Belt. Among these mixes of ice,…
November 5, 2014
“It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life.” -Jean-Luc Picard
We like to think of nature as beautiful, elegant and infallible. Yet our notions of what's beautiful and elegant don't always line up with what reality gives us. Take the notion of symmetry…
November 4, 2014
If you wanted to travel to the stars -- and by that, I mean star systems beyond our own -- you'd better be prepared to take your sweet time. Even at the speeds the Apollo astronauts traveled to the Moon, it would take millions of years to reach even the next nearest star beyond our own, Proxima…
November 4, 2014
Sure, the Big Bang is great. Going back to very early times, it tells us the Universe was in a hot, dense state, where even the possibility of forming neutral atoms was impossible due to the incredible energies of the Universe at that time. The patterns of fluctuations that are left over from that…
November 3, 2014
“Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and adventures are the shadow truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes and forgotten.” -Neil Gaiman
When you consider the short life of a star cluster -- from a collapsing molecular cloud to a nebula rich in gas and dust to a bright…
November 2, 2014
“Once I knew only darkness and stillness… my life was without past or future… but a little word from the fingers of another fell into my hand that clutched at emptiness, and my heart leaped to the rapture of living.” -Helen Keller
Our tiny, little fingers make all the difference in the world,…
November 1, 2014
"There is no secret ingredient. It's just you." -Po, Kung-Fu Panda
Each week at Starts With A Bang brings a fresh set of topics from around the Universe -- near and far, large and small, concrete and abstract -- for us to think about. This week has been a splendid example, with new articles on such…
November 1, 2014
“I think one of the coolest things you can do is disappear for a while, because it gives you the chance to re-emerge.” -Josh Homme
The Big Bang -- and General Relativity in general -- teaches us that in an expanding Universe, it's the fabric of space itself that evolves over time. One of the…
November 1, 2014
“Not man enough? NOT MAN ENOUGH? I have three Y chromosomes, six adams apples, pecs on my abs and FISTS FOR NIPPLES!” -Testosteraur
You've been waiting all year for a new Halloween photo (and profile photo) for me, and now that the big day has come, it's time to unveil what I've chosen!
Image…
October 30, 2014
“You cannot be lonely if you like the person you’re alone with.” -Wayne Dyer
We like to think of our Solar System as typical: a central star with a number of planets -- some gas giants and some rocky worlds -- in orbit around it. Yes, there's some variety, with binary or trinary star systems and…
October 29, 2014
“Let others praise ancient times; I am glad I was born in these.” -Ovid
With all that we know of astronomy, with the hundreds of billions of galaxies and hundreds of billions of stars in each that we know are there, it might surprise you to learn that the stars -- for the most part -- don't…
October 28, 2014
Wandering into the woods unprepared and without a plan sounds like a terrible idea. But if you're interested in scientific exploration at the frontiers, confronting the unknown with whatever you happen to have at your disposal, you have to take that risk. You have to be willing to take those steps…
October 28, 2014
You've no doubt heard of quantum entanglement before: the idea that if you create a mixed quantum state that consists of two particles, you can then know the properties of one by measuring the properties of the other. The odd -- and counterintuitive -- thing about this is that once these particles…
October 27, 2014
“The human mind is capable of excitement without the application of gross and violent stimulants; and he must have a very faint perception of its beauty and dignity who does not know this.” -William Wordsworth
Galaxies may be the most common type of object identified in the Messier catalogue, and…
October 26, 2014
“The trees are man’s best friends; but man has treated them as his worst enemies. The history of our race may be said to be the history of warfare upon the tree world. But while man has seemed to be the victor, his victories have brought upon him inevitable disasters.” -Nathaniel Egleston
When…
October 25, 2014
"Sexism was the only thing that kept Jerrie Cobb out of space in 1960, and it cannot be allowed to stand in her way now." -Patricia Ireland
It isn't every week that you cover topics ranging from the birth of the Universe to the fundamental nature of space, and the go from sexism in NASA to the…
October 25, 2014
“The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long — and you have burned so very, very brightly, Roy. Look at you: you’re the Prodigal Son; you’re quite a prize!” -Dr. Eldon Tyrell, Blade Runner
Some questions that we look at are fun to consider because of how far outside our own experience…
October 23, 2014
“Our external environment no longer seems to have any firm boundaries, any limits, or any positive cues about when to stop consuming anything. I mean, there is a reason that people get fat — it’s easy and cheap to get high-calorie, tasty food.” -Bob Harper
There are plenty of good things we can all…
October 22, 2014
“We were marching down the street, & we were at the head of the troops. We went on marching, & the troops went off to the left.” -Geoffrey Burbidge
It's such a part of our cosmic and scientific history, that it's difficult to remember that it's only been for the past 50 years that the Big…
October 21, 2014
“The anthropic principle – the idea that our universe has the properties it does because we are here to say so and that if it were any different, we wouldn’t be around commenting on it – infuriates many physicists, including [Marc Davis from UC Berkeley]. It smacks of defeatism, as if we were…
October 20, 2014
“The most amazing lesson in aerodynamics I ever had was the day I climbed a thermal in a glider at the same time as an eagle. I witnessed, close up, effortlessness and lightness combined with strength, precision and determination.” -Norman Foster
It's called the "Eagle Nebula" because the shape of…
October 19, 2014
“I would give my life to fly in space. It’s hard for me to talk about it but I would. I would then, and I will now.” -Jerrie Cobb, at age 67 in 1999
Some of the greatest heros of the 20th century are those who were an integral part of humanity taking our first steps into space. Yet not everyone…
October 19, 2014
"Out, you impostors!
Quack salving, cheating mountebanks! your skill
Is to make sound men sick, and sick men kill." -Philip Massinger
It's been a wild ride full of ups-and-downs this week, as we've covered topics from solidly-based science to the theoretically expected, all the way to physical…
October 17, 2014
“I must choose between despair and Energy —— I choose the latter.” -John Keats
Yes, we know that the fabric of the Universe is not made up of space and time but rather a unified spacetime; that the spacetime isn't static but rather expands as the Universe goes on; and that the expansion isn't…
