Our ability to look out into space is such a fundamental part of the human experience. Continue reading Kirsten Hall contemplates our role on Earth amidst the cosmos
From glowing corals to vomiting shrimp, animals have used bioluminescence to communicate for millions of years – here’s what scientists still don’t know about it Continue reading The Conversation: How to achieve an Instagram-worthy glow up
Whether the subject is angry peacocks or classic American musicals, Franklin Robinson’s favorites are as diverse as his work. Continue reading A few of my favorite things: Franklin Robinson
Black holes. What are they good for? Absolutely something! Continue reading Cosmic Journey II: Voyage into the Abyss
Celebrate Solstice Saturday, June 22, with daytime events and parties and performances late into the night. Continue reading Stay out late with the Smithsonian
We hate to break it to you, but a real-world Jurassic Park will never happen. (Ed. note: Probably for the best, considering how many people are consumed in interesting ways in the movies.) Continue reading Eye on Science: Logan Kistler hopes to solve modern problems by studying ancient DNA
The onward push of “progress” rarely has been kind to indigenous people and traditional ways of life. That is changing in Alaska. Continue reading Scientists and Indigenous leaders team up to conserve seals and an ancestral way of life at Yakutat, Alaska
The real War of the Worlds may take place on the moon, in an epic battle between Urania, the Muse of Astronomy, and mammon, the Earth’s most worshipped god. Continue reading The Conversation: The rush to return humans to the Moon and build lunar bases could threaten opportunities for astronomy
When a star is born or dies, it emits X-rays, the same X-rays a doctor uses to see inside the human body. But astrophysicists aren’t trying to set a broken bone, they’re trying to see the beginning of the universe. Continue reading The Conversation: I’m an astrophysicist mapping the universe with data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory
This time on Sidedoor, we travel back to the 1930s to learn how the first astrophysicist to successfully theorize a black hole went from being ridiculed by his scientific community to the namesake of the observatory that’s helping us visualize our universe. Continue reading Sidedoor: Cosmic Journey 1 “Stellar Buffoonery”
Vote now for the Autumn 2025 Windows Lock Screen. Voting ends Sunday, September 21st! Continue reading Vote now for the Autumn 2025 Windows Lock Screen
(Ed. note: We should note that it's never wise to stand behind a cow, even a buttery one. Cow pies never win blue ribbons.) Continue reading Behind the Butter Cow: A Look at the Renwick’s new State Fair exhibition
More than $2.5 million in grants has been awarded to fund projects ranging from exposing little kids to nature, the link between movement and emotional wellbeing and building a robotic telescope. Continue reading 2025 Together we Thrive
Melanie Adams will serve as interim director beginning August 26. Continue reading Director of the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum is stepping down
