(19 Dec 2025) Every December, Smithsonian magazine’s science team picks which stories were the year’s most significant. We look for a broad set of topics that captured the public’s imagination or that fit in with trends that will affect us far into the future—and overall shape how we remember the year.
Scientific discoveries this year demonstrated the importance of continuing to examine the world that surrounds us, from cosmic objects to the human body to prehistoric remains.
Distilling 12 months of ingenuity, journal publications and aha moments into a list of ten blurbs is never an easy task. This year, we selected stories that span outer space, health, genetics, conservation, technology, paleontology and human origins—and each one of them grabbed our attention.
Here are Smithsonian magazine’s top ten most significant science stories of 2025.
