Four centuries ago, Johannes Kepler established three laws of planetary motion that accurately describe how planets in the solar system orbit the Sun. That might be enough for most; however, befitting ...

A century ago, people needed help to understand science. Much as they do today. Then as now, it wasn’t always easy to sort the accurate from the erroneous. Mainstream media, then as now, regarded ...

It’s been 60 years, to the day, since Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was the first human to travel to space in a tiny capsule attached to an R-7 ballistic missile, a powerful rocket originally designed ...

From “experimental archaeology” to the mysterious appeal of exploration, the wide-ranging subjects detailed in these titles captivated Smithsonian magazine’s science contributors this year Joe Spring, ...