All Stories

In this "movie mini," Matt and Emily discuss the sci-fi film Arrival (2016), based on Ted Chiang's novella Story of Your Life.

Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how we wonder . . . well, where to even begin? We brought in one of the Museum's astronomy educators for a stellar conversation about the birth, life, and death of stars. 

Turns out the best way to understand a hurricane is . . . to fly directly through it. We talk to members of the Air Force and NOAA Corps who take to the skies to gather vital weather data. 

Over 5,800 exoplanets have been discovered, with more and more being observed almost every day. But what makes these objects planets and not stars? How different are planets and stars, actually?

In 1920, Astronomers Heber Curtis and Harlow Shapley debated at the Smithsonian whether Andromeda was a separate galaxy.

With the advent of the Space Age, scientists began searching for extraterrestrial life using radio waves, believing advanced civilizations might send signals across space. Despite Cold War tensions, researchers from different countries worked together to explore this possibility. Their efforts led to international meetings, shaping modern SETI research in the search for cosmic communication.

Scientists and engineers are trying to use what they do know to create bat-inspired flying machines, but traits like bats' self-cambering stretchy wing skin, skeletal muscles and tiny hair sensors are proving difficult to replicate. 

Scientists and engineers are trying to use what they do know to create bat-inspired flying machines, but traits like bats' self-cambering stretchy wing skin, skeletal muscles and tiny hair sensors are proving difficult to replicate. 

The Moon is pockmarked with impact craters. Everywhere you look, you can see a crater. On Earth, however, impact craters are few and far between, with barely any visible. Why do we see so many craters on the Moon but so few on Earth?

Our museum collection is sometimes a working one. That means that scientists come to do aviation or space research using objects in the Museum.