Space

Light reflecting off Saturn illuminates the plumes shooting out of Enceladus in this 2013 Cassini image.

New Research

NASA Spacecraft Heads for Deepest Ever Dive Into Saturn Moon's Plumes

Cassini will plunge into the watery geysers to search for evidence of hydrothermal vents and other clues about the moon's hidden ocean

An artist’s rendering shows a white dwarf star shredding a rocky asteroid.

New Research

Dead Star Shredding a Rocky Body Offers a Preview of Earth's Fate

The stellar corpse spotted by a NASA telescope backs up a theory that white dwarf stars eat planetary remnants

A color composite image highlighting pluto's brilliant diversity of color and texture. The western lobe of the heart—an area rich with nitrogen, carbon monoxide and methane ice—is brightly displayed in the right of the image.

First Official Data From the Pluto Flyby Reshapes the Dwarf Planet’s History

“The ‘little spacecraft that could’ is making a lot of big discoveries,” says Alan Stern

Shaving was something of a job on all the Apollo missions because in Zero-G, water doesn't just run off the face.

New Photos From Apollo Mission Depict the Mundane Daily Tasks of Astronauts at Work

From the original film rolls that the astronauts took into space, a work-a-day routine emerges of Apollo mission voyages

The shiny, dark crust of a meteorite emerges from the snow during an ANSMET collection trip to Antarctica.

Space Rock Hunters Are About to Invade Antarctica

Scientists with the ANSMET program will endure six weeks near the South Pole during an annual field trip to find meteorites

People around the world gathered to photograph and ogle the bright red glow of last night’s supermoon lunar eclipse.

The Photos of the Rare Supermoon/Lunar Eclipse Convergence Do Not Disappoint

Take in the majesty of the unusual astrophysical event with these photos captured around the world

Matt Damon stars as Mark Watney, the titular "Martian" who gets left for dead on the red planet.

The Secret of "The Martian" Success? Scientific Peer Review

Andy Weir's tale of a stranded astronaut got its start as a blog, complete with reader comments that helped shape the plot

Think Big

The Theory of Relativity, Then and Now

Albert Einstein's breakthrough from a century ago was out of this world. Now it seems surprisingly down-to-earth

Does this look infected?

Life May Have Spread Through the Galaxy Like a Plague

If alien life is distributed in a pattern that mirrors epidemics, it could be strong support for the theory of panspermia

This layered metal sphere is a wormhole for magnets.

Innovative Spirit Health Care

Physicists Built a Wormhole for Magnets

The metal sphere lets one magnetic field pass through another undetected, which could lead to improvements in medical imaging

Greetings, 51 Eridani b!

How, and Why, Do Astronomers Take Pictures of Exoplanets?

The latest snapshot of a Jupiter-like world hints at the potential for seeing more diverse planets in direct images

A combined shot shows two Perseids falling a minute apart over Bergen, Norway, on August 13.

See Spectacular Photos From This Year's Perseid Meteor Shower

The annual event sent sparks flying over dark skies as Earth plowed through debris from a comet

The Milky Way and moon illuminate a lone tree in the Atacama Desert, Chile.

Smithsonian Journeys Travel Quarterly: Inca Road

An Astronomer's Paradise, Chile May Be the Best Place on Earth to Enjoy a Starry Sky

Chile's northern coast offers an ideal star-gazing environment with its lack of precipitation, clear skies and low-to-zero light pollution

Smithsonian Takes a Giant Step with Its First Kickstarter Campaign to Fund the Conservation of Neil Armstrong's Spacesuit

On the 46th anniversary of the historic moonwalk, the spacesuit that made it possible is headed to the conservation lab

Mission operations manager Alice Bowman shares the real secret behind the Pluto flyby in December 2014.

These Pictures Give a Rare Glimpse Into the Heart of the Pluto Flyby

Spanning the full 9.5 years of the mission to date, the images by Michael Soluri capture the people behind the epic close encounter

Turns out Pluto is covered in ice mountains up to 11,000 feet high.

Behold, the First Closeup Pictures From the Pluto Flyby Are Here

From fresh-faced moons to ice mountains, these are the visual surprises that hit the ground the day after the Pluto flyby

Exaggerating the colors on Pluto and Charon helps mission scientists see distinct terrains on each icy world.

Where Will the New Horizons Probe Go After Pluto?

The historic flyby may be over, but the spacecraft should still go on to study even smaller bodies on its path through the Kuiper belt

Pluto as seen by New Horizons on July 13, when the spacecraft was about 476,000 miles from the surface.

The New Horizons Probe Has Made Its Closest Approach to Pluto

Mission scientists have received the confirmation signal that the pre-programmed event went as planned and the craft is healthy

Hello, Pluto! We <3 you, too.

New Research

Pluto Probe Finds Surprises Ahead of Its Close Encounter

From dark poles to weird "whales", New Horizons is giving us a taste of the historic science we can expect from its visit to Pluto

The 7-by-6-foot video wall on view at the National Air and Space Museum closes the 93 million mile gap between the Earth and the Sun.

These Two Scientists Turned Data From the Sun Into a Work of Art

After collecting real-time data from the sun, two astrophysicists got to tinkering with video game components and the outcome is breathtaking

Page 19 of 37