Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Science / Space

Galileo Demonstrating Telescope

Art Meets Science

Was Shakespeare Aware of the Scientific Discoveries of His Time?

For his new book, Dan Falk followed a group of scholars who argue, unlike most, that the playwright was up to speed with the latest astronomy

Preparing for the Next Step in Manned Spaceflight

NASA prepares to send humans into deep space

Life in the Cosmos

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

Less than a mile from the South Pole, the Dark Sector Lab’s Bicep2 telescope (at left) searches for signs of inflation.

Listening to the Big Bang

Just-reported ripples in space may open a window on the very beginning of the universe

A view of the installation of the ATLAS portion of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.

Art Meets Science

Art and Science Collide in the Discovery of the Higgs Boson

Particle Fever, a documentary about the physicists who found the “God particle,” suggests doing science isn’t that different from making art

From the National Air and Space Museum / Udvar-Hazy Center.

The Story of NASA’s Jet-Propulsion Backpack

Thirty years ago, astronauts set out on the first untethered space odyssey

The Intel Science Talent Search honored the top winner and nine esteemed runners-up of its 2014 competition at a black-tie affair in Washington, D.C.

These Teenagers Have Already Accomplished More Than You Ever Will

The winners of this year’s Intel Science Talent Search take on flu vaccines, stem cells and tools for diagnosing cancer

The planet Kepler-22b, shown in this artwork, is the right size and distance from its star to support liquid water, and perhaps life.

Life in the Cosmos

The Search for Life Across the Universe

Smithsonian astrophysicist Jeremy Drake explains how the question changed from “if” life will be found elsewhere to “when” and “where”

It is time that we drop Hollywood’s humanoid view of extraterrestrials. In reality, David Aguilar says, “We are going to find bizarre adaptations.”

Life in the Cosmos

What Will Extraterrestrial Life Look Like?

Illustrator David Aguilar melds art and science to imagine how alien creatures might adapt to their environments

Observing the center of the Milky Way at Paranal Observatory.

Top 10 Travel Destinations for An Astronomy Geek

From the world’s biggest telescopes to isolated islands, here are some of the best places to explore the cosmos

Why Carl Sagan is Truly Irreplaceable

No one will ever match his talent as the “gatekeeper of scientific credibility”

The immense emptiness of Mars' Meridiani Plains, taken by the Opportunity Rover during the month it was stuck in a sand rippled dubbed Purgatory. Full size version.

After Ten Years on Mars, Here Are the Most Beautiful Photos Taken by the Rovers

Over the last decade, Spirit and Opportunity captured stunning photos of rocks, dunes and vistas

None

The Coolest Science of 2013, in GIFs

This year, we saw dissolving electronics, flying meteors, gravity-defying chains and rotting pineapples

The Andromeda Galaxy

Think Big

What Does the Future of the Universe Hold?

The collision of our galaxy with the Andromeda galaxy is billions of years away, but it’s never too early to wonder what will happen

Charles "Pete" Conrad stands with the United States flag on the lunar surface on November 19, 1969.

The Moon Belongs to No One, but What About Its Artifacts?

Experts call on spacefaring nations to protect lunar landing sites, not to mention Neil Armstrong’s footprints

A closeup of one of the rocks, with a patch of dust brushed away by Curiosity's instruments, that provides evidence of an ancient lake.

Curiosity Found Evidence of An Ancient Freshwater Lake on Mars

Drilling into Martian rock revealed that it formed at the bottom of a calm lake that may have had the right conditions for sustaining life

A new analysis indicates that 22% of Sun-like stars harbor planets roughly the size of Earth in their habitable zones.

There Are Probably Way More Earth-Like Exoplanets Than We Imagined

A new analysis indicates that 22 percent of Sun-like stars may harbor planets roughly the size of Earth in their habitable zones

None

Explore Mars’ Mountains and Canyons from a Probe’s-Eye View

Using ten years of data from their probe, the European Space has created a lifelike flyover simulation of the red planet

An artist’s depiction of the newly discovered ice-rich, rocky asteroid that was ripped apart by the distant white dwarf star 200 million years ago.

Scientists Just Discovered Water Near a Star 170 Light Years Away

The water was once bound as ice in a small, rocky planet or asteroid that was destroyed 200 million years ago

Defrosting the Crests of Inca City, LAT: -81.5° LONG: 296.3° “The nature of this polygonal network, unique on Mars, remains poorly understood, but seems to be linked to volcanic dykes covered by eolian sand. These terrains are close to the South pole and undergo springtime defrosting in dark patches that become progressively larger as temperatures climb,” writes geophysicist Nicolas Mangold in This is Mars.

This Is Mars in Extremely High Resolution

French designer Xavier Barral pored over 30,000 images taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HiRISE camera, selecting the most appealing for his book

Page 26 of 40