Smithsonian Magazine

Our time with our interstellar visitor, comet 3I/ATLAS, is almost up. It’s set to leave the solar system soon, after zipping by Jupiter last month. bit.ly/4d8tt6x

A proactive effort to document the collection of the Gemäldegalerie will pay off a century later as negatives of lost paintings by Rubens and Caravaggio are digitized and published online. bit.ly/4t49DOx

Sotheby’s will auction off one of the largest and most complete Tyrannosaurus rex specimens ever found. However, some researchers are concerned that the scientifically valuable fossil specimen might end up in private hands, which could make it more challenging to study. bit.ly/4wFyFWu

What they learned from the spacecraft offered a valuable lesson; it informed a new re-entry trajectory for Artemis 2, the mission that carried four astronauts around the moon in April. bit.ly/4f8TwdO

The sky was a very dangerous place in the early days of commercial aviation. By flying into storms to learn how they worked, these experts made air travel and weather forecasting much more predictable. bit.ly/4wIz2j9

Arachnophobes, beware: You don’t want the brown huntsman spider coming at you. The creepy-crawly might be the fastest spider species in the world—and its top speed outpaces the average human jogger. bit.ly/4ppfJZC

Across a matter of days in 2024, the seafloor in part of the Indian Ocean dropped by about 13 feet, and roughly 5.7 billion cubic feet of molten rock rose to the crust’s surface, according to a new study. bit.ly/4wISgFl

For the first time, archaeologists identified one of the culture’s famed Classic era mathematicians and astronomers. bit.ly/4pnS3oI

A tiny critter that lived around 550 million years ago might represent the first known sign of right-handedness in animals—despite not having any hands. bit.ly/4h7d056

Excavations at Marina el-Alamein, an archaeological site west of Alexandria, unearthed about two dozen of the rare artifacts, including one shaped like the Eye of Horus. bit.ly/4fDIr5O

Scientists have made a sweet discovery near the heart of our Milky Way galaxy, spotting a sugar molecule in the space between stars for the first time. bit.ly/4w7CVhV

Built in the 1940s, Big Boy No. 4014 retired in 1961 after traveling for more than one million miles. It’s now making its way across the country in honor of America’s 250th birthday. bit.ly/4peFFHm

A 28-year-old bachelorette visiting Florence damaged the Italian city’s 16th-century Fountain of Neptune—to the tune of nearly $6,000. bit.ly/4w255v5

Built as ceremonial gathering places, often involving the burial of ancestral remains, the earthworks feature embankment walls enclosing huge spaces, with carefully positioned and often monumental gateways. bit.ly/4eizpLz

The late Cretaceous marine food web may have had a terrifying kraken-like creature among its top ranks. bit.ly/48WlPd2

Baby elephant Linh Mai made her public debut to the delight of thousands of @NationalZoo visitors on April 22, but elephant fans who weren’t at the Zoo still have a big reason to celebrate: the Elephant Cam is back on the Zoo’s website. bit.ly/4vR9G2Y

For decades, Elizebeth Smith Friedman worked in near-total secrecy, cracking codes that shaped the outcome of two world wars. Recently declassified, the full extent of her story is still coming to light. bit.ly/3STzDQB

Dogs are man’s best friend. But exactly how these furry canines came to be humanity’s closest animal companions remains one of science’s mysteries. bit.ly/4hbMd7D

Discover the story of a great American art form—comics. bit.ly/3RfuilW

A new exhibit at the Library of Congress is offering the public the chance to see how history was written—and edited. bit.ly/4vAriyX