Astronomy

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The Surprisingly Complicated Reason Why Stars Look Like They Have Points

Stars are star-shaped because of imperfection in our eyes

A Perseid streaks across the sky over the archaeological site Stobi in modern-day Macedonia

The Perseids Meteor Shower Peaks Tonight

Watch the remains of comet Swift-Tuttle burn up in the atmosphere

Google hosts its fourth-annual science fair. Shown here, the 2013 winners.

Google Thinks These 18 Teenagers Will Change the World

The global finalists of this year’s Google Science Fair take on cyberbullying countermeasures, tar sands cleanup and wearable tech

A close up of the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko taken from just 80 miles up.

Rosetta Satellite Is the First to Ever Orbit a Comet

It's been a long trip, but Rosetta has finally reached its destination

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Here's How Astronomers Actually Find Planets in Other Solar Systems

Astronomers have found 1,741 exoplanets. But how, exactly?

"Watermarks" earned first place in the contest. “The way water in this picture found its way back to the ocean reminded me of a peacock's tail spreading under the sun or a woman's hair blowing in the wind,” Sadri writes.

Who Knew Fungi and Fruit Fly Ovaries Could Be So Beautiful?

Princeton University’s annual science art contest shines a light on the research world, adding a video element this year

An amateur photograph of galaxy NGC 5907 by Flickr user korborh. On its own it doesn't look like much, but combined with hundreds more it can reveal new secrets about the universe.

Astronomers Are Doing Real Science With Space Photos They Found on Flickr

Want to help research? Grab a camera and point it to the heavens

We Know Physics is Largely White and Male, But Exactly How White and Male is Still Striking

Most current physics students will likely never have an African American physics teacher, says a new survey

Surely this exoplanet deserves a better name than CoRoT-7b.

Ok, Now There's an Actual, Official Contest to Name New Exoplanets

The International Astronomical Union is throwing their own exoplanet naming contest

An artist's rendition of Gliese 581g from 2010. Unfortunately the artist put a planet where there isn't one.

Gliese 581g, the First Exoplanet Found That May Have Been Able to Host Life, Doesn’t Actually Exist

So long Gliese 581g, the potentially habitable exoplanet that never was

This image was taken while exploring a 1300m lava cave in Iceland. In some areas the roof has caved in, so snow piles up in the winter time and creates these snow peaks. The aurora at its peak gleams through the roof of the cave and despite only taking up a small portion of the photo, it remains the focal point.

These Amazing Pictures Made the Shortlist For Astronomy Photographer of the Year

The competition, now in it's sixth year highlights beautiful images of the sky from around the world

The newly discovered "mega-Earth" Kepler-10c dominates the foreground in this artist's conception. Its sibling, the lava world Kepler-10b, is in the background. Both orbit a sunlike star. Kepler-10c has a diameter of about 18,000 miles, 2.3 times as large as Earth, and weighs 17 times as much. Therefore it is all solids, although it may possess a thin atmosphere shown here as wispy clouds.

This Rocky Exoplanet is Really, Really Big—Too Big

Kepler-10c is a rocky planet that's too big to be a rocky planet

This year, Smithsonian magazine's festival is themed "Science Meets Science Fiction."

The Future is (Still) Here: Day Two of Smithsonian's Second Annual Conference

Instead of holding its own global fest this year, Nerd Nite descended on our nation's capital.

A combination of infrared and X-ray observations indicates that a surplus of massive stars has formed from a large disk of gas around Sagittarius A*.

Inside Black Holes

Three recent black hole events and how they shape our universe

Left, a golden record (© Nasa/National Geographic Society/Corbis) Right, the other side of the golden record shows directions to play it. Identical records carrying the story of Earth were sent into deep space on Voyager 1 and 2.

The Golden Record 2.0 Will Crowdsource A Selfie of Human Culture

Inspired by a similar effort in the 1970s, the project wants your help in creating a portrait of humanity to send out of the solar system

Atlas V Launches the New Horizons Mission to Pluto.

Take a Peek Into the Future's Present With Our Live Coverage of Smithsonian's Two-Day Festival

The magazine's 2nd annual conference brings together experts, authors and visionaries in the fields of science, science fiction and technology.

Sara Seager’s Tenacious Drive to Discover Another Earth

Planetary scientist Sara Seager has turned tragedy into tenacity in her search for new Earths among the stars

Sequential shots showing a 2010 lunar eclipse.

In the Western Hemisphere? Get Set for Tonight's Total Lunar Eclipse

Tonight's eclipse is the first of a rare spurt of lunar eclipses for the western hemisphere

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Astronomers Just Discovered an Asteroid With Rings

They aren't supposed to be there, but...there they are.

One small chunk of one small slice of one portion of the absolutely massive photo of the Milky Way captured by the Spitzer Space Telescope.

This 6 GB Photo of the Milky Way Is As Stunning As It Is Massive

Over the past 10 years the Spitzer Space Telescope captured this gorgeous infrared panorama of the Milky Way

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