This illustration plots changes in brightness of the red supergiant star Betelgeuse, following the titanic mass ejection of a large piece of its visible surface. The escaping material cooled to form a cloud of dust that temporarily made the star look dimmer, as seen from Earth. This unprecedented stellar convulsion disrupted the monster star’s 400-day-long oscillation period that astronomers had measured for more than 200 years. The interior may now be jiggling like a plate of gelatin dessert. Credit: NASA, ESA, Elizabeth Wheatley (STScI)
The Apollo 11 Command Module Columbia displayed in the new "Destination Moon" exhibition, opening Oct. 14, 2022. Credit: Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum
Eelgrass from the Finnish Archipelago Sea. Eelgrasses migrated to the Atlantic from the Pacific hundreds of millennia ago, and that ancient migration left marks on their DNA that still shape them today. (Credit: Christoffer Boström, Åbo Akademi University)
Singer James Brown is captured off stage around Memphis, Tenn. (Ted Williams/Johnson Publishing Company Archive). Courtesy Ford Foundation, J. Paul Getty Trust, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and Smithsonian Institution.
Getty Trust Commits $30 Million to Digitize the Johnson Publishing Company Archive Which Features More Than 4 Million Prints and Negatives That Chronicle 20th Century Black Life
Credit: “Nor This Nor That” by Sara Sonnenblick, inkjet print, 2022. Courtesy of artist (L).
“Trapped” by Otto Grunewald, inkjet print, 2022. Courtesy of artist (R).
Professional Skateboarders and Filmmakers Jason Lee and Chris “Dune” Pastras Donate Personal Objects to the National Collections During Ceremony at Innoskate Festival
Credit: “Harriet Beecher Stowe” by Alanson Fisher, oil on canvas, 1853. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution (L). “Congressman John Lewis” by Michael Shane Neal, oil on linen, 2020. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. Gift of Jeffery and Cindy Loring in memory of Congressman John Lewis. Copyright: Michael Shane Neal (R).
Sister Gertrude Morgan, Fan, ca. 1970, paint and ink on card, Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Margaret Z. Robson Collection, Gift of John E. and Douglas O. Robson, 2016.38.43R-V.
The Public Can Tour the Year 2050 With “Your Future Guide,” a First-of-Its-Kind Online ExperienceDebuting To Celebrate the Final Month of the Landmark “FUTURES” Exhibition
Sister Rosetta Tharpe performs at the 1967 Newport Folk Festival. Photo by Diana Jo Davies. Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections.
Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the “Godmother of Rock ‘n’ Roll,” rose to prominence in the 1930s as a pioneer of mixing “secular sounds,” such as electric guitar, with sacred lyrics.
A whooping crane chick hatched May 26 at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Virginia. Photo credit: Chris Crowe, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute
Septima Poinsette Clark by Brian Lanker, gelatin silver print, 1987. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; Partial gift of Lynda Lanker, and museum purchase with the support of Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker, Agnes Gund, Kate Kelly and George Schweitzer, Lyndon J. Barrois and Janine Sherman Barrois, and Mark and Cindy Aron. Copyright Brian Lanker Archive.
