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Outer Space

The Smithsonian has completed its multi-year conservation project of the Neil Armstrong spacesuit, digitizing the historic Apollo artifact so that soon authentically realized duplicates can be downloaded for study and appreciation.

Apollo at 50: We Choose to Go to the Moon

In Celebration of 50 Years Since the Moon Landing, Neil Armstrong’s Spacesuit Set to Return to Public View

Duplicates of the 3D scanned historic Apollo artifact will also tour Major League ballparks this summer

The Apollo 10 Command Module, "Charlie Brown," as seen from the detached Lunar Module, "Snoopy."

A Smithsonian Curator Reflects on Apollo 10, the Mission That Made Landing on the Moon Possible

Fifty years ago, the astronauts who crewed the “dress rehearsal” for Apollo 11 paved the way for history to be made just a couple months later

Future of Space Exploration

The Space Station Just Got a New Cutting-Edge Carbon Mapper

The OCO-3 instrument will watch Earth’s carbon levels change throughout the day

Future of Space Exploration

One-Third of Exoplanets Could Be Water Worlds With Oceans Hundreds of Miles Deep

A new statistical analysis suggests seas hundreds of miles deep cover up to 35 percent of distant worlds

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine talks about getting American astronauts to the moon in the next five years while participating in a Future Con panel discussion at Awesome Con.

Future Con

This Year’s Future Con Showcased Cutting-Edge Science and Real-Life Superheroes

A part of Washington, D.C.’s Awesome Con, the dynamic presentation series blends entertainment and education

Surf's WAY up.

New Research

Ocean Wind and Waves Have Grown Stronger Over the Last Three Decades

Decades of satellite data show changes in the ocean that could lead to more destructive storm surges and coastal erosion

The SEIS instrument on the surface of Mars.

Future of Space Exploration

NASA Detects First ‘Marsquake’

A 2 to 2.5 magnitude quake on the Red Planet is the first seismic activity detected outside the Earth and the Moon

Image of planetary nebula NGC 7027 with illustration of helium hydride molecules. In this planetary nebula, SOFIA detected helium hydride, a combination of helium (red) and hydrogen (blue), which was the first type of molecule to ever form in the early universe. This is the first time helium hydride has been found in the modern universe.

Future of Space Exploration

NASA’s Flying Telescope Spots Oldest Type of Molecule in the Universe

An infrared telescope mounted in a Boeing 747 has detected the first type of molecule to form after the big bang

NASA astronaut Christina Koch conducts botany research aboard the International Space Station, where she’s been living and working since March 14, 2019. Her mission has been extended, and she will remain at the station until February 2020.

Future of Space Exploration

Christina Koch Is Scheduled to Spend 328 Days in Space—a Record for Women Astronauts

‘It feels awesome,’ Koch said of the milestone

This artist's-concept illustration depicts the spacecraft of NASA's Psyche mission near the mission's target, the metal asteroid Psyche.

Future of Space Exploration

NASA Prepares to Build Spacecraft Bound for a Metal Asteroid

The Psyche spacecraft, headed to an asteroid with the same name, will explore a metal world thought to be the leftover core of a destroyed planet

Harvard astronomers theorize that a meteor that struck Earth's atmosphere in 2014 could have been from another solar system, judging by what scientists know about 'Oumuamua, an interstellar object that zipped through our solar system in 2017. (An artist's depiction of 'Oumuamua is seen here.)

An Interstellar Meteor May Have Collided With Earth in 2014

Researchers have identified an object that, they theorize, was traveling too fast to have originated within our solar system

Cool Finds

Scientists Find a Tiny Speck of Comet Inside a Meteorite

The little fragment found in Antarctica was protected from the elements and preserves the chemical signature of the early solar system

A photographic plate of the 1919 total solar eclipse, taken by Andrew Claude de la Cherois Crommelin and Charles Rundle Davidson during an expedition to Sobral, Brazil. The 1919 eclipse was used by Arthur Eddington, who observed it from the island of Principe off the west coast of Africa, to provide the first experimental evidence of Einstein's theory of relativity.

What the Obsolete Art of Mapping the Skies on Glass Plates Can Still Teach Us

The first pictures of the sky were taken on glass photographic plates, and these treasured artifacts can still help scientists make discoveries today

2007 OR10 is the largest object in our solar system with out a name.

The Largest Unnamed Object in the Solar System Needs a Title—and You Can Help

2007 OR10 needs a snazzier moniker; the public can now choose between ‘Gonggong,’ ‘Holle’ and ‘Vili’

Shortly after the first human space flight, the Soviet Union began planning to send a woman to space.

The First Group of Female Cosmonauts Were Trained to Conquer the Final Frontier

Two decades before the first American woman flew to space, a group of female cosmonauts trained in Star City of the Soviet Union 

Identical twin astronauts, Scott and Mark Kelly, are subjects of NASA’s Twins Study. Scott (right) spent a year in space while Mark (left) stayed on Earth as a control subject.

NASA’s Study of Astronaut Twins Creates a Portrait of What a Year in Space Does to the Human Body

Wide-ranging research compares astronaut Scott Kelly to his earthbound twin brother, Mark

The image reveals the black hole at the center of Messier 87, a massive galaxy in the nearby Virgo galaxy cluster. This black hole resides 55 million light-years from Earth and has a mass 6.5 billion times that of the sun.

Astronomers Capture First-Ever Image of a Supermassive Black Hole

The Event Horizon Telescope reveals the silhouette of a black hole at the center of a galaxy 55 million light-years away

New Research

Exoplanet Core Orbiting a Dying Star May Help Astronomers Understand What Lies in Store for Our Solar System

It’s likely the planetesimal orbiting a white dwarf 410 light years away was the core of a minor planet caught in its immense gravity

New Research

Raging Rivers May Have Washed Over Mars for Billions of Years

A study of 200 river systems shows the waterways persisted even while the atmosphere was disappearing and the Red Planet was drying up

The most recent vortex on the left and the first one discovered in 1989 by Voyager 2.

New Research

There’s a Dark and Stormy Vortex Brewing on Neptune

It is the sixth massive dark and stormy vortex found on the planet since 1989 and the only one astronomers have watched develop

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