Articles tagged as Outer Space | Smithsonian Magazine

Hundreds of thousands of man-made fragments of debris orbit around the Earth, as depicted here in an illustration of the cosmic mess.

The object could be a lost piece of a rocket dating back to the Apollo missions

October 28, 2015

Light reflecting off Saturn illuminates the plumes shooting out of Enceladus in this 2013 Cassini image.

NASA Spacecraft Heads for Deepest Ever Dive Into Saturn Moon’s Plumes

Cassini will plunge into the watery geysers to search for evidence of hydrothermal vents and other clues about the moon’s hidden ocean

October 26, 2015

Planets forming around a young star (artist’s vision)

New Research

92 Percent of Possible Earth Twins Have Yet to Be Born

Our young universe promises trillions of more planets to come

October 23, 2015

Don’t worry—it won’t interrupt your Halloween plans

October 21, 2015

An artist’s rendering shows a white dwarf star shredding a rocky asteroid.

New Research

Dead Star Shredding a Rocky Body Offers a Preview of Earth’s Fate

The stellar corpse spotted by a NASA telescope backs up a theory that white dwarf stars eat planetary remnants

October 21, 2015

Microgravity is the best place to figure out why raindrops are round

October 19, 2015

A color composite image highlighting pluto's brilliant diversity of color and texture. The western lobe of the heart—an area rich with nitrogen, carbon monoxide and methane ice—is brightly displayed in the right of the image.

First Official Data From the Pluto Flyby Reshapes the Dwarf Planet’s History

“The ‘little spacecraft that could’ is making a lot of big discoveries,” says Alan Stern

October 16, 2015

Video portrait shows massive storm changing as it shrinks

October 15, 2015

Clear skies and little moonlight make for great meteor watching

October 8, 2015

The shiny, dark crust of a meteorite emerges from the snow during an ANSMET collection trip to Antarctica.

Space Rock Hunters Are About to Invade Antarctica

Scientists with the ANSMET program will endure six weeks near the South Pole during an annual field trip to find meteorites

October 5, 2015

People around the world gathered to photograph and ogle the bright red glow of last night’s supermoon lunar eclipse.

The Photos of the Rare Supermoon/Lunar Eclipse Convergence Do Not Disappoint

Take in the majesty of the unusual astrophysical event with these photos captured around the world

September 28, 2015

Cool Finds

NASA Unveils Giant Ice Cube With Wheels for Exploring Alien Oceans

An underwater rover might one day explore otherworldly seas

September 28, 2015

New Research

50-Year-Old Moon Data Reveals Unseen Earthquakes

Scientists have identified four different types of moonquakes in data left over from Apollo 17

September 24, 2015

Cool Finds

How to Build a Seven-Mile-Wide Scale Model of the Solar System

It takes three-and-a-half miles to get from the Sun to Pluto

September 21, 2015

Life May Have Spread Through the Galaxy Like a Plague

If alien life is distributed in a pattern that mirrors epidemics, it could be strong support for the theory of panspermia

August 27, 2015

An image of the Italian Alps, snapped in June by the ESA's Sentinel-2, could be used in biodiversity studies.

Cool Finds

Why Satellites Are a Biologist’s Best Friend

From tracking penguins to coral reefs, satellites are changing the way scientists study ecology

August 17, 2015

The leading hemisphere of Dione shows tectonic faults running across its surface, along with craters, in false color, which was produced by an image in the ultraviolet, green, and infrared wavelengths taken by the Cassini Orbiter. The subtle variations in color may be caused by fine ice particles.

It’s curtains for the NASA mission’s close relationship with the satellite

August 17, 2015

How, and Why, Do Astronomers Take Pictures of Exoplanets?

The latest snapshot of a Jupiter-like world hints at the potential for seeing more diverse planets in direct images

August 14, 2015

A combined shot shows two Perseids falling a minute apart over Bergen, Norway, on August 13.

See Spectacular Photos From This Year’s Perseid Meteor Shower

The annual event sent sparks flying over dark skies as Earth plowed through debris from a comet

August 13, 2015

Cool Finds

Astronauts Have Some Weird Pre-Launch Traditions

Rituals are important when you’re about to rocket into space

August 4, 2015