Articles tagged as Astronomers | Smithsonian Magazine

Researchers now think that most stars—like this pair in the Perseus constellation—form in pairs.

New Research

Our Sun Probably Grew Up With a Sibling

But now its buddy is long gone

June 21, 2017

Artist's impression of a comet swarm around Tabby's Star

A large dip in the star’s brightness suggests something massive is orbiting the fiery body

May 23, 2017

The Parkes radio telescope in Australia, which discovered the first FRB and the most recent burst

New Research

Latest Fast Radio Burst From Space Adds to Their Mystery

Researchers trained 11 telescopes on a recent burst’s aftermath, but could find no traces of what caused the high energy signal

May 15, 2017

NASA's Cassini spacecraft captures three of Saturn's moons—Tethys, Enceladus and Mimas—in this group photo.

Space Hub

How and When Did Saturn Get Those Magnificent Rings?

The planet’s rings are coy when it comes to revealing their age, but astronomers are getting closer

May 1, 2017

Cool Finds

Time-Lapse Video Captures the Breathtaking Glow of Hawaii’s Night Sky

Skyglow allows you to revel in an increasingly rare sight: a starry night

April 26, 2017

NASA technicians and engineers place a tent over the folded-up James Webb Space Telescope to protect it from dust and dirt once it leaves the "clean room" and proceeds to acoustic and vibrational testing.

Watch Scientists Freeze and Shake the James Webb Space Telescope

The largest space telescope ever built has a few last tests to pass

April 21, 2017

Artist's rendering of what DeeDee may look like

New Research

Meet DeeDee, the Solar System’s Newest Dwarf Planet (Maybe)

Though the tiny icy orb meets all the criteria, it has yet to receive the official designation

April 14, 2017

New Research

Atmosphere Detected Around an Earth(ish)-Sized Planet

Just 39 light years away, GJ 1132b is 1.4 times the Earth’s radius and has an atmosphere that may be composed of steam or methane

April 7, 2017

Shortly after the announcement of the TRAPPIST-1 system, NASA crowdsourced its Twitter followers for possible planet names. The actual process of naming new planets, however, is a bit more involved.

Ask Smithsonian 2017

How Do New Planets Get Their Names?

Sorry, Planet McPlanetface: Asteroids, moons and other celestial bodies go through a strict set of international naming guidelines

March 17, 2017

An artists rendering of how a solar sail might be powered by a radio beam from the surface of a planet

New Research

Are Fast Radio Bursts from Alien Spacecraft? It’s Unlikely, but Possible

A new paper raises the (distant) possibility that the unusual high-energy bursts from the cosmos are from intergalactic ships

March 10, 2017

New Research

New Definition Would Make the Moon and Pluto Planets

A suggested update to the International Astronomical Union criteria would add over 100 planets to the solar system

March 3, 2017

Artists rendering of the suspected Planet 9

Citizen scientists can examine photos to help discover a new planet, which recent evidence suggests is hiding at the edge of the solar system

March 2, 2017

Cunitz was among the few who saw the truth in Johannes Kepler’s laws of planetary motion, which stated that planets moved in elliptical orbits around the sun. Here, a concept drawing of the Earth and moon in orbit around the sun.

Space Hub

The 17th-Century Lady Astronomer Who Took Measure of the Stars

Astronomer Maria Cunitz might not be such an anomaly, were other women given the same educational opportunities

March 2, 2017

An artist's impression of the gas being stripped away from spiral galaxy NGC 4921

New Research

Dark Matter Could Be Destroying Distant Galaxies

The mysterious substance may suck gas from the galaxies—and a gasless galaxy is a dead galaxy

January 19, 2017

A model of the binary star system KIC 9832227, which could explode around 2022.

Just five years from now a pair of stars are predicted to merge, forming a glittery and bright new point in the sky

January 10, 2017

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.

Think Big

Introducing the Global Effort to Map the Night Sky

How astronomers around the world are piecing together a patchwork quilt of celestial activity

January 9, 2017

Artists rendering of all the telescopes that helped track down FRB 121102

New Research

Mysterious Fast Radio Bursts Traced to Dwarf Galaxy in the Auriga Constellation

Knowing where they originate will help researchers understand what creates the mysterious high-energy signals

January 5, 2017

Comet 45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdušáková as seen in October 2011

With a telescope in hand, you can watch a comet zoom past the Earth tomorrow night

December 30, 2016

Vera Rubin makes observations through the Flagstaff Telescope.

Her observations confirmed the theory of dark matter, and her activism helped open science to more women

December 27, 2016

A compressed view of the entire visible sky from the Pan-STARRS1 Observatory

New Research

Massive Survey Catalogues the Night Sky

Over four years, the Pan-STARRS telescope collected 2 petabytes of photos of the night sky, creating the most complete astronomical atlas yet

December 22, 2016