Here's what we're tracking for the year ahead ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
December 31, 2025—Well, friends, we made it to the final hours of the year. Today, we're looking forward to 2026 and what the world of space exploration has in store. Also find below the health stories we'll be keeping our eyes on next year. As always, find the latest science news on our site. —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | THE MOST EXCITING SPACE NEWS WE'RE WATCHING FOR IN 2026 | | The element assembly wheel of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.NASA/Ball Aerospace (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) | | - Return to the moon: The launch of NASA's Artemis II mission, which could occur as early as February, will carry four astronauts on a 10-day voyage around the moon. Artemis II will mark the first human presence in our natural satellite's vicinity since the early 1970s and will set the stage for subsequent crewed journeys
to the lunar surface.
- New telescopes: NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope may launch later in the year and start its mission to study large-scale cosmic structures to help clarify the still-mysterious nature of dark matter and dark energy. China's Xuntian space station telescope may launch as well; and the ground-based Vera C. Rubin Observatory, although it officially started operating in 2025, will ramp up its panoramic observations of the heavens in 2026 to discover new asteroids, comets, supernovae, and other celestial phenomena.
- Rocket launches: SpaceX test flights of its Starship are set to continue throughout 2026. Other partially reusable rockets—namely, New Glenn from Blue Origin, and Zhuque-3 from the Chinese commercial company LandSpace—are slated for additional flights in 2026.
Click here to read more space news to look out for in 2026. | | HEALTH NEWS WE'LL BE WATCHING IN 2026 | | - Weight-loss pills are here. The companies that make popular injectable glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) drugs are developing weight-loss pills. Wegovy manufacturer Novo Nordisk's pill for type two 2 diabetes, Rybelsus, was approved in 2019. A version of that pill gained FDA approval for weight loss just last week. But Eli Lilly—maker of Zepbound—has a pill in the works, too. We'll be watching how effective the pill formulations will be.
- Measles-free status. The U.S. could lose its measles-free status as soon as January if current infection trends continue. Measles—an extremely contagious yet vaccine-preventable illness—was
declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000, but the past year has seen multiple large outbreaks of the disease in states such as Texas, Utah and South Carolina.
- Public health under attack: The department of health and human services, led by longtime antivaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has systematically dismantled federal health agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Food and Drug Administration and National Institutes of Health. The Trump administration took aim at life-saving vaccines in 2025, and we expect other federal government policy changes in 2026 that could make Americans less healthy.
Click here to read more about the health science news we'll be tracking in 2026. | | | | |
The editors of Scientific American look to 2026 as a chance to predict what science may unfold and what discoveries may lurk on the horizon. But the new year is also a chance to look back at recent turmoil and instability in federally funded scientific research, the wholesale dismissal of evidence in policymaking, and—despite these things—the perseverance of people working in the scientific enterprise. We celebrate the fact-checkers in the field of knowledge and you, our readers, who continue to trust us to bring you what's real, what's factual and what's amazing in our world. Click here to read about the topics we are paying attention to in 2026. | 6 min read | | It's been my honor to be on a journey of scientific discovery with you this year. I suspect you're like me and believe that science can help us overcome any challenges we face. I'm eager to encounter the exciting discoveries awaiting us in 2026, I know we have a lot of wonder and awe in store.
Email me any end-of-year thoughts: newsletters@sciam.com. We'll be back on Monday, the first in 2026! | | —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor
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