re: Is there anything cooler than a neutron star in interstellar space?

Well, MIT's Alan Guth is a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Physics for the theory so he must be on to something. Trouble is, very few people understand it well enough to expound upon it for the masses.

With the discovery of gravitational waves, cosmic inflation is confirmed so I imagine many more physicists will take up the field. Also, Guth should be receiving his well-deserved Nobel soon.

His mathematical discovery and its gravity waves confirmation has made the Big Bang Theory very solid. It's very difficult to argue that the Universe began in some other way.

In fact, it's so logical that many physicists are theorizing beyond it and are proposing an "M Theory" that views the Universe as just one of an uncountable number making up a Multiverse.

No one knows the origin of the term M Theory. It's one of the weird aspects of being a research physicist. It just happened. I suspect Edward Witten, the smartest living theoretical physicist, originated it because he laughs every time he talks about it.