Technology & Space

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

A new Smithsonian Book asks the question: Is there a future for crewed missions to the Moon?

In the Wake of Apollo’s 'Giant Leap,' What’s Next for Lunar Exploration?

A new Smithsonian Book unpacks the possible future of missions to the Moon

Betsy Congdon, lead engineer for Parker Solar Probe’s heat shield, looks on as technician Tony Ahan attaches the interface plates that will allow the heat shield above them to eventually be installed onto the spacecraft.

Behind the Scenes With the Spacecraft That Will Soar Through the Sun's Atmosphere

The probe, which launches Sunday, will attempt to solve enduring mysteries about the sun

Nine Travel Tips From Astronauts

What can terrestrial travelers learn from people who have been to space?

A 2018 colorized image of Jupiter's south pole created by citizen scientist Gabriel Fiset, using data from NASA's Juno spacecraft.

How Jupiter May Have Gifted Early Earth With Water

A new model of the solar system suggest we have gas giants to thank for our watery world

Defense is the only option against a never-ending onslaught.

The Original 'Space Invaders' Is a Meditation on 1970s America's Deepest Fears

One of the first digital shooting games reflected a fear of, well, invaders—a fear that still resonates today

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

Awesome Con provided an opportunity for science fiction and real-life science to play off of one another. The Robot from Netflix's Lost in Space reboot (center) illustrates the former, while the NASA jacket of the con attendee on the right nods to the latter.

The Real Science Behind Your Favorite Nerd Culture at Awesome Con

Astrophysicists, vehicle technicians and biologists joined the party to bring cutting-edge research to fictional worlds

A drone image of a breeding colony of Greater Crested Terns. Researchers used plastic bird decoys to replicate this species in an experiment that compared different ways of counting wildlife.

New Research

When It Comes to Counting Wildlife, Drones Are More Accurate Than People

Technology could be a conservation gamechanger, but we need to interrogate its impact on wildlife

It Took Decades to Solve This UN Plane Crash Mystery

Over a half century after the crash of UN DC-6 on September 18, 1961, a new investigation is launched

An artist's rendering of the CP-1 nuclear reactor.

How the First Man-Made Nuclear Reactor Reshaped Science and Society

In December 1942, Chicago Pile-1 ushered in an age of frightening possibility

How to Tell If You're in for a Bumpy Plane Landing

On March 7, 2007, Garuda Flight 200 was preparing to land. An Air Force security officer on board immediately sensed a problem

Sleek new entranceways will grace the refurbished museum.

Here's Why Washington’s Beloved Air and Space Museum Is Facing a Sweeping Seven-Year Upgrade

The museum will remain open as it works to enhance the visitor's experience

Were Lithium Batteries the Cause of This Plane Crash?

UPS Airlines Flight 6 crashed into a military base 10 miles from Dubai Airport on September 3, 2010

An artist's impression shows two tiny but very dense neutron stars at the point at which they merge and explode as a kilonova.

What the Neutron Star Collision Means for Dark Matter

The latest LIGO observations rekindle a fiery debate over how gravity works: Does the universe include dark matter, or doesn’t it?

Behind Saturn's icy rings is the moon Tethys, illuminated by the planet's reflected sunlight.

How Scientists Engineered Cassini’s Final Demise

After a rich scientific life, Cassini went out in a blaze, becoming one with the planet it had revolved around for so long

The H.L. Hunley, a confederate Civil War era submarine, sits in its water tank at the Hunley Lab in North Charleston, SC.

One Scientist May Have Finally Figured Out the Mystery of Why a Civil War Submarine Sank

A Navy engineer used creative modeling and her knowledge of underwater explosions to tackle the century-old Hunley conundrum

The astronauts of "2001: A Space Odyssey" hide in a pod to discuss the troubling behavior of their spacecraft's artificial intelligence, HAL 9000. In the background, HAL is able to read their lips.

Ask Smithsonian

When We Go to Mars, Will We Have a Real-Life HAL 9000 With Us?

How generations of NASA scientists were inspired by an evil Hollywood supercomputer

NASA's Cassini spacecraft captures three of Saturn's moons—Tethys, Enceladus and Mimas—in this group photo.

Space Hub

How and When Did Saturn Get Those Magnificent Rings?

The planet's rings are coy when it comes to revealing their age, but astronomers are getting closer

A visualization of the interior of Blue Origin's "New Shepard" space tourism rocket.

Here’s What to Expect on the First Tourist Flights to Space

Take a peek at plans for Blue Origin's first space tourism rocket

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