Scientists find new evidence of when and how our early Milky Way came together
New research provides the best evidence to date into the timing of how our early Milky Way came together, including the merger with a...
Waves shed light on mysterious ‘mixing’ inside massive stars
Astronomers commonly refer to massive stars as the chemical factories of the universe.
They generally end their lives in spectacular supernovae, events that forge many...
New techniques could help identify extraterrestrial life
Scientists are at the brink of being able to detect ET Life, which was predicted to be difficult decades ago.
New techniques suggest there...
What if you could hear space?
A new project turns astronomical images from the Chandra X-ray Observatory—operated for NASA by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory—and other telescopes into sound.
When you see...
National Air and Space Museum will display Star Wars X-Wing starfighter
The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum will display an X-wing Starfighter in the newly renovated building on the National Mall starting late next year.
The...
Voyager 1 detects plasma ‘hum’ in the empty space
Voyager 1 - one of two sibling NASA spacecraft launched 44 years ago and now the most distant human-made object in space - still...
Mars isn’t dead. Its volcanoes could still be active
Most volcanism on the Red Planet occurred between 3 and 4 billion years ago, with smaller eruptions in isolated locations continuing perhaps as recently...
Scientists discover new type of aurora
For millennia, humans in the high latitudes have been enthralled by auroras--the northern and southern lights.
Yet even after all that time, it appears the...
What’s possible at the deaths of our Universe’s most massive stars
A curiously yellow pre-supernova star has caused astrophysicists to re-evaluate what is possible at the deaths of our Universe's most massive stars.
The team describe...
520-day simulated Mars’s mission changes crew’s gut bacteria
Crew members who took part in the Mars500 mission experiment showed significant changes in their gut microbiota after 520 days in confinement, according to...