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Outer Space

The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter’s shadow seen on the surface of Mars and captured by its own down-facing camera during its second test flight on April 22.

NASA’s Ingenuity Helicopter’s Next Mission? Mapping the Red Planet From Above

After successful test flights, NASA is expanding Ingenuity’s mission to further explore its abilities as an aerial scout

The lunar module Eagle, carrying Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, ascends back up to the command module Columbia with Michael Collins. It is often said that Michael Collins is the only human, living or dead, who is not in this photograph.

Future of Space Exploration

Apollo 11 Astronaut Michael Collins on the Past and Future of Space Exploration

On the occasion of the lunar landing’s 50th anniversary, we spoke to the former director of the National Air and Space Museum

NASA’s Juno spacecraft captured this image of swirling clouds in Jupiter's northern latitudes on November 3, 2019

New Research

Raindrops Are Surprisingly Similar on Other Planets

Whether they are made of water, methane or liquid iron, raindrops’ size and shape are limited by the same equations

Soon after Ingenuity's lift-off and landing, the drone sent a black and white photo of its shadow during the flight back to engineers on Earth through the rover.

Exploring Mars

NASA’s Mars Helicopter Completes First Historic Test Flight on Another Planet

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory confirmed Ingenuity’s successful lift off into the Martian sky after receiving data from the Perseverance rover

The fireball cruising across the sky was most likely a fragment of an asteroid called a 'bolide'.

Fireball Illuminates Skies Across East Coast of Florida

The asteroid fragment weighed 900 pounds and hit Earth’s atmosphere at 38,000 miles per hour

The Perseverance captured this image of itself and the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter days before its maiden flight.

Smithsonian Voices

What to Expect When Ingenuity Takes Flight This Week on Mars

Nicknamed ‘Ginny,’ the Mars helicopter is set to take off from the surface of the Red Planet no earlier than April 14

In the new reprocessed image, ionized oxygen is seen in blue and ionized hydrogen and nitrogen glow red.

NASA Reveals Spectacular New Hubble Telescope Image of the Veil Nebula

Advanced processing techniques brought out finer details of the nebula’s filaments and delicate threads of translucent ionized gas

The pink splotch on the planet shows the X-rays detected in 2002 imposed on a photo of Uranus taken in 2004 at the same orientation.

Scientists Detect X-Rays Radiating From Uranus

The beams could be scattered light from the Sun, fluorescence from Uranus’s rings, or produced by auroras on the ice giant

After completing the first milestone surviving on its own, Ingenuity is now preparing for its next challenge, passing a series of test flights on the Red Planet's thin atmosphere.

Ingenuity Helicopter Survives Its First Night Alone on Mars

On April 3, 2021, the spacecraft launched from the Perseverance rover and successfully landed on the red planet

The Ingenuity helicopter is scheduled to attempt flight this week no later than April 8 after the Mars rover completes its first mission of transporting the small chopper to a flat "airfield" free of obstructions.

Mars Helicopter Ingenuity Holds Piece of Wright Brothers History

Secured under Ingenuity’s solar panels is a stamp-sized swatch of fabric from the Wright Flyer

A new image of the black hole at the center of the M87 galaxy. The image shows patterns of polarized light around the supermassive black hole, which in turn reveals the structure of the black hole’s magnetic fields.

New Research

Scientists Capture Swirling Magnetic Fields in New Image of Black Hole

The updated picture adds polarization, revealing new details of the stunning cosmic phenomenon

A mosaic image of our Milky Way galaxy created over the course of nearly 12 years.

See Astonishing Milky Way Mosaic Image That Took 12 Years to Create

A Finnish astrophotographer created the 1.7 gigapixel image by stitching together photos with a total exposure time of roughly 1,250 hours

'Oumuamua is shaped less like a cigar, as was originally proposed, and more like a pancake, according to recent research.

New Research

New Theory Suggests ‘Oumuamua Is a Nitrogen Ice Pancake

When the interstellar visitor swept around the sun, it got a speed boost, probably because some of the ice vaporized

Life on Earth began to appear at least 3.5 billion years ago; by then, Mars had already lost much of its water into the crust or outer space.

New Research

Mars’ Missing Water Might Be Hiding in Its Minerals

New research estimates how much water was absorbed into the mineral makeup of Mars’ crust

As the largest telescope in the Northern Hemisphere, the research team says it can rival the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in the South Pole.

Russian Scientists Sink Giant Deepwater Neutrino Telescope Into World’s Largest Freshwater Lake

In the depths of Lake Baikal, the observatory is designed to detect nature’s ghost particles

Researchers have developed this theoretical model to explain the workings of the Antikythera mechanism, the 2,000-old ancient Greek device that is often referred to as the "first computer."

New Research

Scientists May Have Discovered How the Ancient Greeks’ ‘First Computer’ Tracked the Cosmos

Researchers proposed a new theoretical model for the Antikythera Mechanism, a 2,000-year-old device used to chart the universe

Researchers propose storing genetic material from each of Earth's 6.7 million species of known organisms to safeguard life on our planet from annihilation.

Sending DNA From Earth’s 6.7 Million Species to the Moon to Safeguard Life

Researchers propose constructing a ‘lunar ark’ to provide our planet with a ‘reset button’ in the event of a world-ending catastrophe

Exoplanet GJ 1132 b was discovered in 2015 and is about 41 light years away from Earth

New Research

Unusual Exoplanet Might Be Regrowing Its Atmosphere

Remnants of the first atmosphere trapped under the planet’s thin crust might escape through volcanic eruptions

Through her literary works, “Kindred”, “Bloodchild”, “Parable of the Sower”, Butler explored themes of global warming, gender equality, political disparity and racism and as a result is known as the “mother” of Afrofuturism.

Mars’ Perseverance Landing Site Named After Science Fiction Author Octavia E. Butler

The Jezero crater location has been named ‘Octavia E. Butler Landing’ in honor of the late literary giant

The meteorite is a carbonaceous chondrite. There are only 51 similar samples out of 65,000 meteorites in collections around the world.

Rare Meteorite Found in U.K. Driveway Could Hold Secrets of the Early Solar System

Thousands of people spotted the fireball on February 28, and more fragments may still be scattered in Gloucestershire

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