All Stories

The search for life is a pillar of Mars exploration. But our search isn’t only confined to the planets of our solar system. Radio telescopes search for signals of intelligent life from far away planets, orbiting other stars. In his story, “The Great Silence,” science fiction author Ted Chiang features the Arecibo telescope as he considers the significance of the animal life that surrounds it.

In honor of the 30th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope, curator David DeVorkin takes you on a virtual tour of our Hubble artifacts.

In this guest blog, Dr. Elizabeth Kessler explores the contributions of the Hubble Space Telescope and how it has changed the way we envision our universe.

As the first Chief of Astronomy at NASA, Nancy Grace Roman opened the skies to humanity in new ways without ever leaving the ground.

The moment of humankind's first voyage to the Moon and back was captured in a series of photos taken by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observing Station in Maui, Hawaii. They show the trans-lunar injection rocket burn which sent Apollo 8 hurtling out of Earth orbit toward the Moon on December 21, 1968–perhaps the only such images that exist.

The James Webb Space Telescope will not only give scientists a new, unprecedented view of the first galaxies.

The James Webb Space Telescope, an infrared telescope set to launch in 2019, will see beyond what Hubble can show us: the first stars, galaxies, and black holes; comets, asteroids, and satellites; and more throughout our solar system and beyond.

Thanks to the Kepler Space Telescope, we now know the answer to a longstanding question in astronomy: how common are planetary systems around stars? Quite common, it turns out. In the relatively small patch of sky that Kepler studied, most of the stars had planets orbiting them. Scientists now believe that there are more planets than stars in our Milky Way galaxy.

In late March, I traveled to Puerto Rico to conduct observations of Venus using the Arecibo Observatory telescope. It was the second time I traveled to the observatory to make radar measurements of the surface of Venus. Even though it was my second time there, the size and capability of the telescope still impressed me; the telescope is largest single-aperture telescope ever constructed.

At the Observatory, we often get the question “What telescope should I buy?” But once you have one, what do you do with it? Maybe it’s still in the box, perhaps you found it frustrating to use, or maybe you’re ready to hunt for more advanced targets. If that sounds like you, it’s time to go to a telescope clinic!