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Letters to the editors for the April 2026 issue of Scientific American

The conservative think tank’s report claims that high-intensity and elite sports training has lasting effects on menstrual cycles and fertility

Here are four reasons solar energy has seen a meteoric rise in recent years

Science in meter and verse

Golden Dome’s most audacious element would require a vast constellation of weapons that does not yet exist. Defense companies are already lining up to build it

Zipline’s tethered delivery system lowers packages from the sky. Now it has to show that people want the service

Neuroscience is revealing how our brains are wired for narrative

A heavenly read; a 25-foot eye; a case of double personality

We are rightfully told to eat more fiber. But our depleted gut microbiomes may not benefit from superhigh levels

Play this crossword inspired by the September 2026 issue of Scientific American

For decades, an influential theory blamed the Rapanui for their own downfall—a story made famous by Jared Diamond’s book Collapse. New evidence tells a different tale

Companies are making big bets on technology to solve lingering challenges in the clean-energy rollout. Here are four of the most ambitious projects

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will soon launch to unravel the mysteries of dark energy and dark matter

Two American companies are pursuing rival manufacturing strategies for these long-promised cells in an industry China dominates

The Aug. 12 total solar eclipse didn't only plunge millions of people across Greenland, Iceland and Spain into a false twilight — a fleet of spacecraft orbiting our planet managed to capture the magic, too.

August's total solar eclipse occurred as the moon passed directly between the sun and Earth during its monthly new moon phase. Those lucky enough to be in the path of totality watched on in awe as the moon progressively swallowed the light of the sun, ultimately revealing our star's tenuous atmosphere against a prematurely darkened evening sky.

It was a show of truly epic proportions — and maybe one whose scale can be particularly appreciated when viewed through the mechanical eyes of NASA and European Space Agency (ESA) spacecraft that observe our planet and sun from afar. Read on to see some breathtaking views of the Aug. 12 total solar eclipse from orbit.

The Aug. 12 total solar eclipse, seen from space

Our first view comes courtesy of NASA astronaut Jessica Meir, who captured the moon taking a bite out of the sun from the Russian segment of the International Space Station (ISS) on Aug. 12.

The partially eclipsed sun as photographed by NASA astronaut Jessica Meir from the Russian segment of the International Space Station on Aug. 12. (Image credit: NASA/Jessica Meir via X)

"Given the location of the @Space_Station at the time of the total solar eclipse today, we saw only a partial eclipse, with a peak of around 18% sun coverage," Meir said in an X post accompanying the photographs.

Given the location of the @Space_Station at the time of the total solar eclipse today, we saw only a partial eclipse, with a peak of around 18% sun coverage. Here’s how it looked from a window in the Russian segment about 45 minutes ago. Photo of the sun taken with a Nikon Z9,… pic.twitter.com/BUrMQVR808August 12, 2026

Around the same time, photographer Joel Kowsky managed to line up a beautiful shot of the ISS as it passed across the face of our eclipsed star in the skies over Hodgdon, Maine.

This gif shows the ISS' silhouette moving across the sun's face during a partial solar eclipse on Aug. 12, 2026. (Image credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky)

The dual spacecraft of the European Space Agency's Proba-3 mission also captured a lovely (though largely redundant) view of the moon moving to occult the sun's disk, which, in this case, was already perfectly hidden behind the lead spacecraft's coronograph!

Both Proba-3 spacecraft are designed to fly in perfect formation in line with the sun. The "Occulter" spacecraft, closest to the sun, is equipped with a large sunshield, or coronagraph. This coronagraph blocks the sun's disk for the more distant member in the Proba-3 formation, allowing that spacecraft to image our star's atmosphere in incredible detail.

The sun's disk is pictured hidden behind the coronograph of the lead Proba-3 spacecraft with the moon's silhouette above, just hours before the Aug. 12 total solar eclipse. (Image credit: ESA/Proba-3/ASPIICS under CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO, alterations made in Canva by Anthony Wood.)

Thanks to their unique setup, for a brief moment on Aug. 12, the Proba-3 spacecraft recorded a rare double eclipse, as the moon and its artificial mimic simultaneously hid light emanating from our parent star.

Sitting about 22,370 miles (36,000 kilometers) above Earth's surface, ESA's Meteosat Third Generation Imager Satellite (MGT-I1) caught a spectacular view of the moon's shadow darkening our planet.

Solar eclipse as seen from space! From its vantage point in space, the Meteosat Third Generation Imager satellite (MTG-I1) captured the Moon’s dark shadow as it passed over Earth’s surface – converging with the advancing twilight shadow as dusk fell over Europe.… pic.twitter.com/dAQVyuXiIPAugust 13, 2026

The moon's shadow can be seen arcing south in the satellite imagery, before eventually combining with the advancing terminator line, which heralded the transition from day to night wherever it passed.

That same shadow was observed on Aug. 12 by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's GOES-19 satellite as it kept watch over Earth from its perch in geostationary orbit.

This #FullDiskFriday, we revisit the #totalsolareclipse that @NOAA’s #GOESEast (#GOES19)

APOD

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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

Perseids from Perseus

Explanation: This was a good year for the Perseids meteor shower. A key reason was the Moon was absent from lighting up Earth’s night sky so that more meteors were visible than usual. Where was the Moon? It was busy visiting the Sun. Near the Perseids peak, the Moon moved directly in front of the Sun and created a total solar eclipse visible from Greenland and Spain. The Perseids occur when the Earth collides with a stream of Sun-orbiting debris cast off by Comet Swift-Tuttle. Perseid meteors, although typically only the size of a sand grain, tend to be fast and bright because Swift-Tuttle’s debris orbits the Sun in a direction partly opposite Earth’s orbital motion. In the featured image compilation, accumulated over several nights from Jizerka in the Czech Republic, the Perseids meteor streaks can be traced back to a single location on the sky — its radiant in Perseus.

Gallery: Perseids Meteor Shower of 2026
Tomorrow’s picture: open space

Date August 18, 2026 Credit Jakub Kuřák Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff, Jerry Bonnell, Cecilia Chirenti, Keighley Rockcliffe A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U. Random APOD Generator Yesterday’s Image APOD: 2026 August 17 – A Golden Corona Eclipse Tomorrow’s Image

APOD

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APOD

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

Perseids from Perseus

Explanation: This was a good year for the Perseids meteor shower. A key reason was the Moon was absent from lighting up Earth’s night sky so that more meteors were visible than usual. Where was the Moon? It was busy visiting the Sun. Near the Perseids peak, the Moon moved directly in front of the Sun and created a total solar eclipse visible from Greenland and Spain. The Perseids occur when the Earth collides with a stream of Sun-orbiting debris cast off by Comet Swift-Tuttle. Perseid meteors, although typically only the size of a sand grain, tend to be fast and bright because Swift-Tuttle’s debris orbits the Sun in a direction partly opposite Earth’s orbital motion. In the featured image compilation, accumulated over several nights from Jizerka in the Czech Republic, the Perseids meteor streaks can be traced back to a single location on the sky — its radiant in Perseus.

Gallery: Perseids Meteor Shower of 2026
Tomorrow’s picture: open space

Date August 18, 2026 Credit Jakub Kuřák Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff, Jerry Bonnell, Cecilia Chirenti, Keighley Rockcliffe A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U. Random APOD Generator Yesterday’s Image APOD: 2026 August 17 – A Golden Corona Eclipse Tomorrow’s Image

Sophie Adenot will make spaceflight history today (Aug. 18).

The European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut will become the first French woman ever to conduct a spacewalk, an activity she'll undertake with NASA astronaut Anil Menon.

The duo are scheduled to step outside the International Space Station (ISS) for a 6.5-hour excursion today at around 8:35 a.m. EDT (1235 GMT). You can watch it live here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA. Coverage starts at 7 a.m. EDT (1100 GMT).

Sophie Adenot is part of the European Space Agency's 2022 astronaut class. (Image credit: ESA)

Adenot and Menon will "replace a space-to-ground antenna on the orbital complex," NASA officials wrote in a spacewalk preview.

"The antenna is a critical communications link NASA uses to transmit data, enabling high-speed communications between the Mission Control Center in Houston and the space station," they added.

This will be the second spacewalk for Menon; his first one, conducted with fellow NASA astronaut Jessica Meir, occurred on Aug. 6. During that extravehicular activity (EVA), a carbon dioxide sensor on Menon's spacesuit gave "an unexpected data reading," NASA officials wrote in an Aug. 7 update.

The sensor returned to normal after Menon doffed the suit, but NASA took some extra time to make sure there was no serious issue. As a result, the agency pushed his second spacewalk back a few days — from the originally planned Aug. 13 to today.

Today's spacewalk will be the 282nd overall in the long history of the ISS. Menon, who reached orbit on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft on July 14, will be "crewmember 1" on the EVA. Adenot — a member of SpaceX's Crew-12 mission, which reached the orbiting lab in February — will be "crewmember 2."

Adenot won't be the first French person overall to conduct an EVA. That distinction goes to Jean-Loup Chrétien, who performed a spacewalk outside the then-Soviet Union's Mir space station in 1988.

Other male French astronauts, including Philippe Perrin and Thomas Pesquet, later spacewalked outside the ISS. Pesquet also became the first French person to command an ISS mission, taking the reins in October 2021.

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