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Science / Space

Abell 370: Galaxy Cluster Gravitational Lens

Think Big

Long After Einstein, Cosmic Lensing Reaches Its Full Potential

How Hubble is taking advantage of Einstein’s theories to study the most distant galaxies

Maria Zuber, first woman to run a NASA spacecraft mission, says she has a "genetic predilection" to explore space.

Life in the Cosmos

This Scientist Seeks Out the Secret History of Other Worlds

Maria Zuber has spent her career enabling discoveries beyond Earth. She says the best is yet to come

Visualization of the giant impact that formed the moon

Journey to the Center of Earth

New Moon-Formation Theory Also Raises Questions About Early Earth

A new model of the impact that created the moon might upend theories about earth, too

An solar storm erupts on April 16, 2012, captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory in the 304 Angstrom wavelength.

New Research

The Solar Storm That Nearly Set the Cold War Ablaze

How radio interference from a 1967 solar storm spooked the U.S. military—and launched space weather forecasting

A long-exposure of Perseids taken in August 2004.

Space Hub

The Perseid Meteor Shower Looks Even More Beautiful When You Know Where It Comes From

Each streak across the sky is a fragment of the original material of our solar system

NASA's Kepler spacecraft launched on March 6, 2009. Today, technology and international collaborations are democratizing the space race.

Space Hub

Opening the Space Race to the Entire World

A new era of collaboration and affordable technology has scientists across the globe sending spacecraft into outer space

This artist's conception shows a dim red dwarf surrounded by three planets. To hold life at their surface, red dwarf planets must orbit close to their star, putting them in the line of fire from dangerous flares.

Think Big

Why the Universe Is Becoming More Habitable

The universe is far more welcoming to life today than it was when microbes on Earth arose—and will only grow more so

Must all molecules of life be handed?

Think Big

Must the Molecules of Life Always be Left-Handed or Right-Handed?

They are on Earth, but life on other planets could play by different rules

Visitors take a guided tour of the Barringer Meteorite Crater in northern Arizona.

American South

Big Boom: The Best Places to See Meteorite Impact Craters

Ancient impacts changed landscapes and perhaps even the course of evolution—here’s where to see the coolest craters this summer

An astrophysicist makes the case that it might be worthwhile to revisit the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 to safeguard the practice of science on the lunar surface.

Can There Be Real Estate on the Moon?

A Harvard-Smithsonian astrophysicist thinks a legal crisis is waiting for us on the surface of the moon.

Galaxy GN-z11 seen in its youth by the Hubble telescope. GN-z11 is shown as it existed 13.4 billion years in the past, just 400 million years after the Big Bang.

Life in the Cosmos

If Telescopes Are Time Machines, the JWST Will Take Us the Furthest Back Yet

The James Webb Space Telescope promises to peer back into the making of the first galaxies

An artist's concept of a moon-sized body slamming into a Mercury-sized world in another solar system. High speed collisions like this were more likely to occur in systems with gas giants, but they took place early in a planet's life, allowing time for the world to recover. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Space Hub

How a Young Jupiter Acted as Both Protector and Destroyer

Like a boisterous older sibling, the gas giant both beat up and protected young Earth

An artist's rendition of Juno in orbit around Jupiter. The craft is powered entirely by the sun's rays.

Space Hub

It’s Official: We Are Now in Orbit Around Jupiter

After a nerve-wracking entry, NASA spacecraft Juno successfully entered the gas giant’s orbit

Scott Kelly works on the International Space Station during a nearly eight-hour spacewalk in November 2015.

Space Hub

Space: News and Features About Astronomy and Spaceflight

Get your daily fix of astronomy and spaceflight, from Smithsonian.com and Air&Space magazine

The Bullet Cluster, originally detected using weak lensing

Think Big

“Weak Lensing” Helps Astronomers Map the Mass of the Universe

By making galaxies a little bit brighter, it points the way to elusive galaxies and lets us detect that most mysterious of substances: dark matter

In this artist's conception, a carbon planet orbits a sunlike star in the early universe.

Think Big

Diamond Planets Might Have Hosted Earliest Life

A new study pushes back the earliest date that extraterrestrial life might, maybe, could appear; if so, it’d be on planets made of diamond

An artist’s conception of the LISA Pathfinder spacecraft in orbit at Lagrange Point 1.

Life in the Cosmos

A Spacecraft Just Measured Movement Less Than the Width of an Atom

The successful results pave the way for a future mission that could detect low-frequency gravity waves

This artist's concept depicts select planetary discoveries made to date by NASA's Kepler space telescope.

Think Big

How Would You React If We Discovered Alien Life?

Experts weigh in on what the detection of other life forms might mean to the human race

Telescope array

Think Big

The Hunt for High-Energy Photons Takes Place From a Mountaintop in Mexico

A new telescope built from water tanks might help answer some of the biggest questions in astronomy

Brother Guy Consolmagno, a staff astronomer and the curator of meteorites at the Vatican Observatory

Think Big

Guy Consolmangno, the Vatican’s Chief Astronomer, on Balancing Church With the Cosmos

The MIT graduate speaks to how he ended up studying the stars for the Catholic Church

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