Space & Aviation
Explore Space & Aviation across the Smithsonian through stories, events, and exhibitions. Use the filters to browse by format, then bookmark events and exhibitions to keep track of what you want to visit or attend.
516 results
Over 27 years of observations from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, the agency’s flagship X-ray mission, have created one of astronomy's richest scientific archives.
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A new study suggests that our solar system’s smallest planet has shrunk by up to 30 percent since its birth roughly 4.5 billion years ago.
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The impact crater was formed in 2024 when an object the size of a multi-story building crashed into our lunar companion. The resulting divot is about 728 feet wide and 141 feet deep.
TIROS 1, the world’s first weather satellite, gave us our earliest look at large‑scale weather patterns, showed the influence of geography on weather, and started giving us more accurate weather forecasts.
Space history curator Jennifer Levasseur has the scoop on astronaut ice cream.
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Scientists have puzzled over why the planet dubbed “Earth’s twin” doesn’t have a moon. Computer simulations hint that if Venus ever did have one, it probably would’ve cannibalized its companion.
Viking was more than just a successful mission, it was a model of collaboration in the face of competition. It brought together competing academic institutions, companies, and even nations.
For the first time, scientists used the joint power of NASA’s Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes to study some of the most far-flung bodies in our solar system, Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs).