starts with a bang

"Actually, I wasn't happy or sad. I was medium. And medium is the happiest that I'll ever be." -Axe Cop It's been an amazing journey over the years, sharing the joys and wonders of the Universe with you. From the smallest subatomic particles, the most fundamental interactions and the shortest timescales imaginable to the stars, galaxies, clusters, superclusters and beyond, we've spent the better part of the last five years together here on ScienceBlogs exploring the most interesting aspects of physical reality together. Image credit: NASA, ESA, F. Paresce (INAF-IASF), R. O'Connell (UVa), and…
"You don't use science to show that you're right, you use science to become right." -Randall of xkcd In January of 2008, I began writing this blog, Starts With A Bang, both for myself and for all of you, because we all have something in common. Image credit: © Stéphane Guisard, "Los Cielos de Chile", via astrosurf.com. The same planet, the same heavens, the same laws of nature and the same Universe are something that we all have in common. And all of us, no matter how intrinsically smart, talented, or brilliant our instincts are, come into this world knowing absolutely nothing about it. But…
The one-year anniversary edition of the Carnival of Space is up at Why Homeschool? If only more homeschoolers were into space, Astronomy, and science in general, the United States would be a far superior place, I'm sure! Thanks to Henry Cate for starting the Carnival and coming back to host it one year later! My post on a black hole getting kicked out of our galaxy is up there; check it out and find out what's going on in outer space!
Dear Reader(s): This is Ethan, and I'm writing this to you to let you know that I owe you an apology. I have gotten so excited with the idea of bringing the story of the Universe to you -- to tell you how we got from the birth of the Universe to the present day, to tell you what the world, galaxy, and Universe is like and how it got to be that way -- that I've gotten carried away. You deserve the story, because it's wonderful and beautiful. You deserve the story, because it's something specialized and complicated, and it's something that I happen to have studied, hard, for the last seven…