These two views from NASA’s Curiosity rover, acquired specifically to measure the amount of dust inside Gale Crater, show that dust has increased over three days from a major Martian dust storm.  The images were taken by the rover’s Mastcam.

Massive, ‘Unprecedented’ Dust Storm Puts Mars Rover at Risk

Engineers have not received any transmissions from the Opportunity rover since Sunday

An illustration of lightning on Jupiter's northern hemisphere, using an image from the JunoCam.

New Research

Jupiter’s Lightning Is More Earth-Like Than We Thought

Juno is providing scientists with new insights into the gas giant’s flashes of light

The imagined surface of Kepler-186f, an Earth-size planet orbiting a small red star.

NASA’s New Exoplanet Travel Bureau Lets You ‘Tour’ Far-Distant Planets In 360 Degrees

Eager space tourists can now visit sunny Kepler-186f, a moon of Kepler-16b or the Earth-like TRAPPIST-1e virtually

Illustration of Sedna, a minor planet with an unusual orbit.

New Research

Is the Mysterious Planet Nine Just a Swarm of Asteroids?

Researchers investigate alternative explanations for wacky orbits of objects in our solar system

Artist’s impression of satellites and debris in low-Earth orbit. Currently 70 percent of all cataloged objects are in low-Earth orbit, which extends to 2000 km above the Earth’s surface.

Greening the Future of Outer Space

A team of scientists and policy experts want to develop space sustainably for future generations

Pluto, and its largest moon Charon, as seen from the New Horizons spacecraft.

Is Pluto Actually a Mash-up of a Billion Comets?

Researchers speculate the beloved dwarf planet could actually be a giant comet

Images of 2015 BZ509 captured by the Large Binocular Telescope Observatory.

New Research

Is This Backwards-Orbiting Asteroid an Interstellar Visitor?

The space rock could have been captured from another star system during the early days of our solar system

This test image from one of the four cameras on TESS captures a portion of the southern sky along the plane of our galaxy.

200,000 Stars Twinkle in First Test Image From NASA’s Planet-Hunting Satellite

Once its cameras are calibrated, TESS will capture 400 times as much sky as this test image

Venus shines brightly in the distance in this picture taken on the International Space Station.

New Research

Venus and Jupiter May Meddle With Earth’s Orbit and Climate

In 405,000-year cycles, the tug of nearby planets causes hotter summers, colder winters and drier droughts on our home planet

Gaia's all-sky view of our Milky Way Galaxy and neighboring galaxies, based on measurements of nearly 1.7 billion stars.

New Research

New Star Map Could Change Everything We Know About the Milky Way

The map includes 1.7 billion stars and is already revealing new details about star evolution and the formation of our galaxy

Trending Today

Five Things to Know About NASA’s New Planet-Hunting Satellite

TESS will scan the skies in search of the next crop of exoplanets

A piece of the Almahata Sitta in Sudan

New Research

Diamonds Trapped in Strange Meteorite Came From Solar System’s Earliest Planets

Impurities in the diamonds could only have formed within a planet the size of Mercury or Mars

Saturn's hazy moon Titan

New Research

Purple Haze: Alien Atmospheres Recreated In the Lab

By combining various gases with plasma, researchers are learning about the haze around distant planets

A laser delivers a burst of ultraviolet light to compress water ice and create superionic ice

New Research

Scientists Make Weird Type of Ice Halfway Between Solid and Liquid

The strange form of ice could help explain the odd magnetic fields seen around Uranus and Neptune

Researchers estimate more than a trillion planets could exist in the elliptical galaxy at the center of this image.

New Research

Astronomers Spot Signs of Planets Outside the Milky Way

Researchers estimate that more than a trillion planets may lurk beyond our galaxy’s bounds

A replica of Foucault's famous experiment at the Museo Nazionale della Scienza e Tecnica in Milan, Italy

Ask Smithsonian

How Does Foucault’s Pendulum Prove the Earth Rotates?

This elegant scientific demonstration has been delighting everyday people for nearly 200 years

Artists illustration of the K-138 system

New Research

Citizen Scientists Discover an Unusual Five-Planet Solar System

Users looking through data on Exoplanet Explorers flagged four sub-Neptune planets orbiting a distant star called K2-138

The Orion Nebula

Cool Finds

Take a Breathtaking Trip Through the Orion Nebula in NASA’s New Video

Combining visible and infrared imagery, the new video takes viewers deep into the star nursery

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