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Outer Space

Corona image from the Parker Solar Probe

Trending Today

Solar Probe Sends Back First Image and Data From the Sun

The Parker Solar Probe survived its first swoop around our star and will get even closer on its next two dozen trips

“Everyone involved accomplished many, many firsts with that flight,” says Smithsonian curator Teasel Muir-Harmony. of NASA's near-perfect mission, (above: Apollo 8 command module).

How Apollo 8 ‘Saved 1968’

The unforgettable, 99.9 percent perfect, December moon mission marked the end of a tumultuous year

A Geminid meteor shower in 2012.

How to Spot This Year’s Spectacular Geminids Meteor Shower

A beautiful celestial display is due to take place starting on the night of December 13

An artist's rendering of the small rover that will be deployed on the far side of the Moon as part of the Chang'e-4 mission.

China Launches First Mission to Land on the Far Side of the Moon

Not glimpsed by humanity until 1959, the surface of the far side of the Moon has never been visited before

New Research

Satellite Data Detects Hundreds of New Sources of Ammonia Pollution

Detailed data shows livestock operations and fertilizers plants are major sources of the pollutant

The Ten Best Science Books of 2018

These titles explore the wide-ranging implications of new discoveries and experiments, while grounding them in historical context

Extragalactic Background Light

New Research

This Is How Much Starlight the Universe Has Produced

4,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 photons over 13.7 billion years

An artists concept of the Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security - Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft collecting a sample from the asteroid Bennu.

Asteroid Sample-Return Mission Arrives to Collect Primordial Rocks of the Solar System

As the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft arrives at its target asteroid Bennu, scientists on the ground prepare for a new bounty of planetary samples

Drug-Resistant Bacteria Found on International Space Station Toilet

The bacteria do not currently pose a risk to astronauts, but that could change as the microbes adapt to their environment

If Light Can’t Escape Black Holes, How Do We Get Photos of Them… and More Questions From Our Readers

You asked, we answered

Scott Bolton says he first dreamed of traveling through the galaxy when he was a boy camping out under the stars.

2018 Smithsonian Ingenuity Awards

Meet Scott Bolton, the Visionary Behind the NASA Mission to Jupiter

The Juno project will take on the mysteries of the gas giant that may in turn help us understand our own planet’s origins

Illustration of NASA's InSight lander about to land on the surface of Mars.

Watch NASA Land the InSight Spacecraft on Mars

The InSight lander has successfully touched down on Mars

The Golden Record features images of life on Earth, nature sounds, greetings recorded in 55 different languages

Art Meets Science

New Catalogue Describes Everything We’ve Sent Into Space

Entries include Doritos’ advertisement, Klingon Opera invitation, Beatles song

Once NASA's InSight lander touches down on the surface of Mars, it will use a seismometer to measure "Marsquakes," and a self-hammering heat probe will burrow five meters below the surface to study the internal heat of the planet.

NASA Will Attempt Its Eighth Mars Landing on Monday

Touching down on the surface of the Red Planet is one of the most difficult engineering challenges ever attempted, and InSight is about to give it a go

Cool Finds

Massive Impact Crater Found Under Greenland’s Ice

Radar scans and sediment samples indicate a large meteorite blasted through the ice sheet between 3 million and 12,000 years ago

An artist’s impression of the newly discovered planet’s surface.

Astronomers Discover Second-Closest Known Exoplanet

The planet, a frozen Super-Earth, orbits Bernard’s Star about six light-years away

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Ingenious Minds

AOL Co-Founder Steve Case Talks With Smithsonian Geologist John Grant About the Search for Life on Mars

In the near future, we are going to know if life exists elsewhere in the universe

The color-enhanced image was created by citizen scientists Gerald Eichstädt and Seán Doran using data from the spacecraft's JunoCam imager, according to NASA.

Cool Finds

Juno’s Latest Photo of Jupiter Is Breathtaking

The image, processed from JunoCam’s raw data, shows storms and winds in the planet’s Northern Temperate Belt

New Research

Gravity Map Reveals Tectonic Secrets Beneath Antartica’s Ice

Satellite data shows East and West Antarctica have very different geologic histories

A mid-level solar flare captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory in 2017.

Did a Huge Solar Storm Detonate Deep Sea Mines During the Vietnam War?

Dozens of underwater devices seemed to explode without cause in 1972

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