Articles tagged as Outer Space | Smithsonian Magazine

This image of the Sun's outermost layer, or corona, was taken June 10, 1998, by TRACE (Transition Region and Coronal Explorer). The Earth-orbiting NASA spacecraft, launched two months earlier, has an unobstructed view of the Sun eight months of the year. It is helping to solve the mystery of why the Sun's corona is so much hotter (3.6 million degrees Farenheit) than its surface (11,000 degrees Farenheit). TRACE is also shedding light on solar storms, which damage satellites and disrupt power transmissions.

From Triton’s active geysers to the Sun’s seething flares, newly enhanced images from U.S. and foreign space probes depict the solar system as never before

November 1, 2003

Look! Up in the Sky! It’s a Bird! It’s a Planet. It’s a Very Large Ball of Ice!

It’s Pluto, with its moon, Charon

March 2002

Painted Ladies in Space

High schoolers ask: would metamorphosis aboard a space shuttle mission yield normal butterflies?

May 31, 2001

Space Art Blasts Off Around the World

December 1999

A computer-generated image representing space debris

Casting a High-Tech Net for Space Trash

A cloud of spacecraft parts and debris envelops the earth. Keeping track of it takes the best we have

January 1, 1999