Scientific American

A swirling pattern of blue light suggests a black hole.

Quantum PhysicsJune 12, 2026

Can black holes send information back in time?

Extremely curved spacetime can warp cause and effect, creating channels for backward communication

Clara Moskowitz

A gif of LEV-2 rover crawling and bopping through sand

Space ExplorationJune 11, 2026

Meet LEV-2, a baseball-sized and absurdly cute moon robot

Jackie Flynn Mogensen

A dark tunnel through white, gray and brown material

GeologyJune 11, 2026

Inside the massive underground salt caves where the U.S. stashes its oil

Cody Cottier

A woman who looks like she's just finished crying looks up in a child's bedroom

Extraterrestrial LifeJune 12, 2026

What Disclosure Day gets wrong about the search for aliens

Emma Gometz

An astronaut with jetpack investigates a Sudoku grid nestled among planets in a retro illustration

GamesJune 12, 2026

Today’s Killer Sudoku

The Young American Scientists Event—Register Now

A figure on a balcony looks out over an illustrated cityscape, contemplating a giant question mark in the sky

GamesJune 12, 2026

Science Quiz: Who claims Antarctica?

Allison Parshall

A tall stainless-steel rocket stands beside a launch tower under a blue sky with scattered clouds.

June 12, 2026

SpaceX’s targeted $1.75-trillion valuation rests on engineering that hasn’t happened yet

Chris Stokel-Walker

Several meteors streak across the night sky over a small house in the countryside

The UniverseJune 12, 2026

Scientists need more snapshots of shooting stars—and you can help

Phil Plait

The director and cast of the movie Disclosure Day pose in front of a banner with the name of the movie for a promotional event

LanguageJune 12, 2026

Disclosure Day raises a big question: How do you talk to aliens?

Rachel Feltman, Sushmita Pathak, Brianne Kane, Alex Sugiura

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June 2026 Issue

A chandelier-shaped cooling system for the quantum computer IBM Quantum System Two.

Quantum Physics

Quantum computing is reaching its make-or-break moment

Adam Becker

An illustration of green computer chips and purple spheres representing quantum bits seem to fly out from a central point of light.

Quantum Computing

What’s a quantum computer good for, anyway?

Zeeya Merali

A stretch of the Via Appia showing the straight construction and stone paving associated with classic Roman roads

Archaeology

New map reveals lost roads of the Roman Empire

Tom Brughmans

An orange and red cross-hatched gradient forms a four-lobed shape over a vast coordinate plane. Along the “x-axis” at the center is a black blob, shaped like a horizontal tear-drop.

Mathematics

The million-dollar math problem hardly anyone is trying to solve

Joseph Howlett

NASA’s Space Launch System rocket launches on a fiery pillar of exhaust surrounded by billowing clouds, sending the Orion crew capsule of the space agency’s Artemis II lunar mission into orbit.

Space Exploration

NASA’s Artemis II launched on first crewed moon mission of the 21st century

Nadia Drake

A false-color view of the moon's Orientale Basin.

Planetary Science

NASA’s Artemis era may finally solve three major moon mysteries

Robin George Andrews

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Games

A robot hand reaches toward bubbles with letters in them

Spellements

Create as many words as you can!

Illustration of a hand and multiple numbers against a purple background.

Math Puzzles

Stretch your math muscles with these puzzles.

A robot hand unleashes a swirl of puzzle pieces, crosswords, and circles with numbers and letters

All Games

Science inspired games, puzzles and quizzes

Special Edition

An illustration of a galaxy.

Astronomy

The new story of the Milky Way’s surprisingly turbulent past

Ann Finkbeiner

Doark amorphous shape

Dark Matter

Dark matter might lurk in its own shadow world

Kathryn Zurek

Illustration of a woman at a desk and her dog living in a spacecraft.

Space Exploration

Why we'll never live in space

Sarah Scoles

Illustration of a black hole in a geometric-like universe

Black Holes

The puzzle of the first black holes

Priyamvada Natarajan

Illustration of a dragon-like creature coming to life out of a long roll of paper

Astrophysics

What if we never find dark matter?

Tracy R. Slatyer, Tim M. P. Tait

Conceptual image of the timeline of the cosmos

Cosmology

Astronomers’ epic quest to witness the cosmic dawn

Rebecca Boyle

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Podcasts

The director and cast of the movie Disclosure Day pose in front of a banner with the name of the movie for a promotional event

Disclosure Day raises a big question: How do you talk to aliens?

Rachel Feltman, Sushmita Pathak, Brianne Kane, Alex Sugiura

An image of workers installing turf on the World Cup pitch at Los Angeles Stadium

SportsJune 10, 2026

Inside the high-stakes effort to bring natural grass to World Cup stadiums

Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Alex Sugiura

An image of an aerial view of FIFA World Cup 2026 match ball installation in Vancouver

Public HealthJune 8, 2026

World Cup kicks off amid outbreak tracking as Mars mission ends and AI fights heat up

Rachel Feltman, Lauren J. Young, Andrea Gawrylewski, Fonda Mwangi, Alex Sugiura

Wooden blocks with letters spell PCOS against a blurry white background

ReproductionJune 5, 2026

Inside the multiyear effort to rename PCOS

Rachel Feltman, Sushmita Pathak, Alex Sugiura

An image of a woman waiting for an elevator in a building

MathJune 3, 2026

How elevators, pizza and card shuffles reveal the surprising math of everyday life

Rachel Feltman, Manon Bischoff, Fonda Mwangi, Alex Sugiura

Discussions

Should religious thinkers help shape AI?

27View the Discussion

Do you think the Riemann Hypothesis is true? Will anyone ever prove it?

11View the Discussion

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