The Search for Life

An artist's concept of a simulated view from the rough, icy surface of the moon Europa with Jupiter looming over the horizon.

SMART NEWS

Jupiter's Moon Europa May Contain Carbon, a Crucial Ingredient for Life

The James Webb Space Telescope will help scientists look for signs on life on other planets.

SCIENCE

What Would Signal Life on Another Planet?

Many reports of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) are later discovered to be some type of balloon.

SMART NEWS

NASA Report Finds No Evidence of Extraterrestrial Origin for UFO Sightings

One of the two specimens presented to Mexico's Congress, photographed during a press conference of Mexican journalist and self-proclaimed UFO expert Jaime Maussan, in Mexico City on September 13, 2023.

SMART NEWS

Alleged Alien Corpses Displayed to Mexican Congress Did Not Convince Scientists

An artist's rendition of exoplanet K2-18 b and the dwarf star it orbits. New observations from the James Webb Space Telescope support the idea that the world, discovered in 2015, has a hydrogen-rich atmosphere and water ocean.

SMART NEWS

This Exoplanet May Be a Distant Ocean World, James Webb Telescope Finds

Past, Present, Future

Astrolabes were astronomical calculating devices that did everything from tell the time to map the stars. This 16th century planispherical astrolabe stems from Morocco.

INNOVATION

The Story of the Astrolabe, the Original Smartphone

Besides exceptional facial hair, what could these two gentlemen have in common?

SCIENCE

The Hidden Connections Between Darwin and the Physicist Who Championed Entropy

An illustration shows the record-breaking supernova ASASSN-15lh as it would appear from an exoplanet about 10,000 light-years away.

SCIENCE

Astronomers Have Found the Brightest Supernova Yet

SCIENCE

Watch the Universe Evolve Over 13 Billion Years

The Andromeda Galaxy

SCIENCE

What Does the Future of the Universe Hold?

How We Explore

People in New Delhi celebrate India's successful landing of a spacecraft near the moon's south pole on Wednesday.

SMART NEWS

India Lands a Spacecraft Near the Moon's South Pole, a First in Lunar Exploration

The James Webb Space Telescope's first Deep Field image

SCIENCE

NASA Releases First Breathtaking Images Taken by James Webb Space Telescope

CAMS results for November 28 to December 14 from 2010 to 2016. Each point is direction from which a meteor was measured to approach, with red showing faster meteors and blue slower ones.

SCIENCE

Introducing the Global Effort to Map the Night Sky

Telescope array

SCIENCE

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

Astrophysicist Kip Thorne dared to dream of a machine to find gravitational waves.

SCIENCE

The Detection of Gravitational Waves Was a Scientific Breakthrough, but What’s Next?

Galaxies, Quasars, Clusters

A potential polar ring galaxy called NGC 4632. The composite image combines a capture of the galaxy's main disk, taken with the Subaru Telescope, with radio wave data of the hydrogen ring, which has been digitally colorized as white.

SMART NEWS

'Spectacular' Polar Ring Galaxies May Be More Common Than Thought, Study Suggests

The "cosmic question mark" in an image taken by the James Webb Space Telescope

SMART NEWS

What Is This 'Cosmic Question Mark' Captured by the James Webb Space Telescope?

An image of the Ring Nebula captured by the James Webb Space Telescope. The interior of the ring is filled with hot gas and the ring itself is a complex structure made up of thousands of dense clumps of hydrogen gas.

SMART NEWS

James Webb Telescope Captures the Glowing Ring Nebula in Magnificent Detail

Understanding the Cosmos

An infrared image of 47 Tucanae, a dense globular cluster of stars located roughly 16,000 light years from Earth. A new study has predicted that a black hole lies at its center.

SCIENCE

How Astrophysicists Found a Black Hole Where No One Else Could

LIGO's founding fathers, from left: Rainer Weiss, Kip Thorne and Barry Barish. Not pictured: Ronald Drever

INNOVATION

Meet the Team of Scientists Who Discovered Gravitational Waves

After a century in which black holes went from theoretical nuisances to undisputed facts, a new initiative at the Harvard -Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics will study them.

AT THE SMITHSONIAN

Stephen Hawking on Why Black Holes Are Worthy of Your Consideration