A dirigible is a large airship that can be steered and controlled as it floats through the sky. Picture an enormous balloon, hundreds of feet long, filled with a lighter-than-air gas that makes it rise. Unlike a regular balloon that just drifts wherever the wind blows, a dirigible has engines and a steering system that let pilots control where it goes.

Dirigibles (also called airships) were once considered the future of air travel. In the early 1900s, before airplanes became powerful and reliable, dirigibles carried passengers across oceans in luxury. The most famous was the Hindenburg, a massive German dirigible that could cross the Atlantic Ocean. But in 1937, the Hindenburg caught fire while landing in New Jersey, which helped bring an end to the era of passenger dirigibles.

Today, you might see smaller dirigibles floating above stadiums during sporting events, displaying advertisements or filming the game from high above. The Goodyear Blimp is probably the most famous modern dirigible in America. While they're too slow for practical transportation now, dirigibles remain useful for tasks that require staying in one spot in the air for a long time, like aerial photography.