SCIENCE
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Why the number “1/137” appears everywhere in nature | by Ethan Siegel | Starts With A Bang! | Dec, 2024
Each s orbital (red), each of the p orbitals (yellow), the d orbitals (blue) and the f orbitals (green) can…
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Could dark matter be the same thing as dark energy? | by Ethan Siegel | Starts With A Bang! | Dec, 2024
While the web of dark matter (purple, left) might seem to determine cosmic structure formation on its own, the feedback…
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Ask Ethan: Does the CMB really “prove” the Big Bang? | by Ethan Siegel | Starts With A Bang! | Nov, 2024
This map shows the CMB’s polarization signal, as measured by the Planck satellite in 2015. The top and bottom insets…
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What happens if you deep fry a frozen turkey? | by Ethan Siegel | Starts With A Bang! | Nov, 2024
One of the more novel ways to cook a Thanksgiving turkey is in a deep fryer. However, this method comes…
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Ask Ethan: How do scientists color the Universe? | by Ethan Siegel | Starts With A Bang! | Nov, 2024
At left is the iconic view of the Pillars of Creation as seen by Hubble. Beginning in 2022, JWST (at…
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How a nearby supernova could reveal dark matter | by Ethan Siegel | Starts With A Bang! | Nov, 2024
This image of the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant shows the aftermath of a type II, core-collapse supernova that occurred more…
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How a companion can change a star’s fate | by Ethan Siegel | Starts With A Bang! | Nov, 2024
When a pulsar, a rapidly-rotating neutron star, finds itself in a tight orbit with another star, it will siphon mass…
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Ask Ethan: Is antigravity even possible? | by Ethan Siegel | Starts With A Bang! | Nov, 2024
A wormhole is the one way, in the context of General Relativity, that immediate transport between two disparate, disconnected events…
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JWST compels us to ask: what’s wrong with Vega? | by Ethan Siegel | Starts With A Bang! | Nov, 2024
This two-panel view of the debris disk around Vega shows Hubble’s (left) and JWST’s (right) views, respectively. Hubble reveals a…
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Ask Ethan: Why isn’t Richard Feynman your personal hero? | by Ethan Siegel | Starts With A Bang! | Nov, 2024
Richard Feynman and his family with their custom-painted van in Altadena, California. (Credit: Ralph Leighton/Symmetry Magazine) One of the 20th…
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