Wednesday, July 22, 2026

Jaw-dropping views of Mars's surface

July 21, 2026—Using AI for work can quickly erode skills. Plus, the thymus plays a role in inflammation and the Jellyfish Nebula has been hiding a big cosmic secret.

—Andrea Gawrylewski
Chief Newsletter Editor

P.S. If this newsletter sparks your curiosity, consider forwarding it to a friend!

TODAY'S NEWS

A GIF of footage captured of the surface of Mars

NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

NASA's Psyche spacecraft flew by Mars earlier this year on its way to a metal-rich asteroid. It snapped these jaw-dropping images of the Red Planet's surface—including craters, polar ice caps and deserts. | 2 min read
The thymus, a small organ in the chest, produces a hormone that helps tamp down age-related inflammation, a new study in mice found. | 2 min read
For the first time, astronomers observed two supernovae in the same multistar system. The Jellyfish Nebula, one of the most studied supernova in our galaxy, has a sibling. | 2 min read
For the first time, researchers observed an Arctic bobtail squid in the North Atlantic ocean, tending to its eggs in -1.6 degree C water. Click through to watch a video of this cutie. | 2 min read
To resolve a plot obstacle involving body-swapping, one Futurama writer developed an original mathematical proof. This is a fun one! | 5 min read
Scientists have detected a small black hole hiding inside one of the Milky Way’s massive star clusters, Omega Centauri. | 2 min read

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Outsourced Cognition

As we become more reliant on AI for our jobs, what will happen to our skills? Early studies suggest that professional abilities can quickly erode as AI is integrated into workplaces. So-called de-skilling is a growing concern for medical specialists, computer scientists and other workers. Seventy percent of nurses and 77 percent of physicians, for example, are worried about losing their skills because of over-reliance on AI systems, according to a June survey of U.S. health care workers.

Two examples:

Medicine. Scientists performed a study of physicians in Poland who specialize in endoscopy. Doctors who had each performed at least 2,000 colonoscopies during their career were given access to an AI system that analyzes colonoscopy images in real-time and flags pre-cancerous lesions. During the three-month period before the AI tool was introduced, the specialists found at least one adenoma during 28.4 percent of colonoscopies. During the three-month period after the tool was introduced, the adenoma detection rate for colonoscopies performed without AI assistance decreased to 22.4 percent.
Computer science. The AI company Anthropic designed a randomized controlled trial in which 52 software engineers were asked to perform a basic coding task. During the exercise, all 52 participants could search the web and access instructions on how to do the task. Half of the participants were prompted to use an AI assistant as well. After the task, participants were quizzed on the task they had just completed. The AI-assisted participants did significantly worse on the quiz than those who hadn’t used AI: the average score was 50 percent in the AI group versus 67 percent in the non-AI group.

What the experts say: To prevent AI-driven skill erosion, people need to be aware of how much they are offloading to generative AI tools, says Tapani Rinta-Kahila, an information-systems researcher at the Hanken School of Economics in Helsinki. “People need to manage the competing dynamics of relying on generative AI and staying mindfully vigilant.”

An artist's conceptual illustration of a drone-like craft with eight spinning propellers, flying over a red, sandy landscape

An artist’s concept of Dragonfly soaring over the dunes of Saturn’s moon Titan. NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Gribben

Octocopter to Titan!

In 2034, NASA scientists plan to fly a probe nearly the size of a sedan around Saturn’s moon Titan. The Dragonfly mission's octocopter (it looks like a drone with eight spinning wings) will get power from a nuclear battery to sail through Titan’s frigid air and assess its habitability. Launch is planned for July 2028, and Dragonfly will cruise for six years before (hopefully!) landing on the surface of Titan, where it would then transmit pictures from the surface and sample the moon’s soil.

Why this matters: Titan is of great interest to astronomers because there are a lot of signs it might support life. But it’s quite hard to get to (see the 2024 movie “Slingshot” for a little sci-fi drama about it). The moon has a methane cycle that is hauntingly similar to our Earthly water cycle, and there’s also evidence of water beneath Titan’s surface. With an abundance of methane and other carbon-based molecules on Titan, scientists are itching to find out whether life might exist there.

What the experts say: “With so much carbon-based chemistry going on, it’s possible Titan cooked up at least the precursors for life,” SciAm contributor Phil Plait writes. However, because the planet is cryogenically cold (about –180 degrees Celsius), “if some kind of biology did get a pseudopodal hold there, it would be very different from Earth’s.” —Emma Gometz, Newsletter Editor 

YOUNG AMERICAN SCIENTISTS

A portrait photograph of Colin Carlson, who looks off camera

Tony Luong

Colin Carlson is an assistant professor of epidemiology at Yale University. There he runs a research project called Verena which looks for emerging viral threats. He also studies how climate change is affecting public health. “For the rest of our lives, the world will never be cooler than it is today,” he says. “We will never have more rainforests than we do today, and the health issues we face, maybe we’ll make progress on them, but they’ll never be the same as they used to be.” Preparedness is the key, he says. "It’s about knowing what’s coming and being ready for the next emergency.”

Read all Young American Scientists profiles here.

PUZZLER

Black, white and beige puzzle pieces arrayed on a black background

Can you unscramble this image of our cover from the October 1990 issue? The reassembled puzzle features a chess piece filled with circuits and computer chips, and the issue examines the 40 years since Scientific American’s first prospectus for a chess-playing computer.

How often do you go for a drive to a new destination and forgo using the car's GPS or your mobile phone's map tool for navigation? I made a deal with myself many years ago that I'd only use GPS the first time going someplace new, but paid attention, knowing I would try to get home without it. Keeping our skills (even when AI is popping up in every task) is a choice and it requires effort.

Thanks for reading and let me know what you think about this newsletter by sending comments to: newsletters@sciam.com. See you tomorrow.

—Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor

Subscribe to this and all of our newsletters here.

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Tuesday, July 21, 2026

Scientists discover mystery molecule on Pluto and Titan

Artemis III will be NASA's most complicated mission ever | Scientists discover mystery molecule on Pluto and Titan | SpaceX targets July 23 for Starship Flight 13 test launch

Created for ceo.studentlike.spuniv@blogger.com | Web Version

July 21, 2026

Taking you out of this world, every day

The Launchpad

Artemis III will be NASA's most complicated mission ever

It's only Tuesday, but it's already shaping up to be a big week in space.

NASA is continuing preparations for the upcoming Artemis III mission. And it's looking like this might be the most complicated crewed mission in history (according to some), as the four astronauts will have to coordinate three different spacecraft. The crew will launch aboard an Orion spacecraft atop the agency's SLS megarocket, and then the crew will test out docking with both Blue Origin and SpaceX's separate lunar landers (Blue Moon and Starship, respectively). This will be a serious test of not just the spacecraft themselves, but of the crew and NASA as a whole as some serious coordination will be required to pull this off safely and successfully.

When it comes to stranger things, scientists have discovered a molecule on Pluto and Saturn's moon Titan. What is this molecule? They actually don't know. And while they are continuing to investigate this mystery molecule, this finding shows just how much we have yet to learn about even our own solar system. Researchers have also located a massive crater using Google Earth and think it could be from an ancient meteorite impact. Speaking of stranger things ... Netflix's "Stranger Things" hits its 10-year anniversary and we reflect on the sci-fi franchise giant that made it cool to like science again.

Check out what's big in space below:

No pressure

Despite being separated by billions of miles, Saturn's moon Titan and the dwarf planet Pluto share an unexplained surface signature.

But what IS it?

Spaceflight

SpaceX targets July 23 for Starship Flight 13 test launch

SpaceX is now targeting Thursday (July 23) for Flight 13 of its giant Starship rocket, after the first launch attempt aborted at the last second on July 16.

Mark your calendar

Twice in a row: SpaceX rocket aborts launch at last second

SpaceX suffered its second last-second abort in a row this morning (July 20), this time during an attempted Falcon 9 launch of Starlink broadband satellites.

Two in a row

Skywatching

The Perseid meteor shower starts this week

The Perseid meteor shower begins on July 17 alongside two others, making "shooting stars" likely any night this month and next.

Look up!

10 places in US/Canada to see an eclipse + meteor shower

A partial solar eclipse by day and the peak of the Perseid meteor shower by night make Aug. 12, 2026, one of the best nights for skywatching and camping in years, but only for some parts of North America.

What might you see?

Science & Astronomy

A massive crater was spotted on Google Earth

While getting ready for a camping trip, an amateur astronomer spotted a possible crater. It appears to be a match, pending microscopic results.

An ancient impact?

Galaxy cluster's magnetic field reconstructed for 1st time

"We believe that the mechanism that 'turns on' these gigantic radio emissions is linked to the formation process of galaxy clusters."

A cosmic map

Entertainment

'Stranger Things' at 10: The icon that made science cool

Stranger Things changed the face of streaming, but it also had a significant impact on piquing the younger audience's interest in science.

10 years already!

Editor's Note

That's it for our space update today!

Are you excited for Artemis III? It seems like Artemis II just splashed down, but it's wild to think how different this next mission will be as NASA prepares to land astronauts on the moon with the next mission. Jumping back to the present, this upcoming Thursday (July 23), SpaceX will attempt to launch its Starship V3 spacecraft again. This will be the second attempt at the craft's second test flight after the first attempt was aborted at the last second last week. Starship is supposed to be one of two (in addition to Blue Origin's Blue Moon) spacecraft that Artemis III docks with to test its capability for future lunar landings, so this test flight is critical. Will you be watching?

Speaking of amazing things in the sky, we have finally reached Perseid meteor shower season in the night sky. However dark the skies available to you may be, it's a great opportunity to get together with friends and family and spend some good, quality time sitting together and looking up. We have some guides for the best ways to spot the Perseids, though the most important thing you'll want to bring is patience. You never know exactly when or where a shooting star will appear. This night sky show is coinciding with a partial solar eclipse visible across the U.S. and Canada, though elsewhere in the world a total solar eclipse will be stunning skywatchers. Space.com correspondents around the world will help to transport us all through this experience, no matter where you live. And to stay as in the loop as possible, you can now get Space.com right in the palm of your hand with our new app available now on iOS and Android.

Ad astra, per aspera

Chelsea Gohd

Content Manager, Space.com