Innehållsförteckning för September 2025 från National Geographic Magazine

“OUR FASCINATION and appreciation for the moon are built on wonder,” writes Charles Fishman in this month’s cover story, about the race to return to the moon and what we’ll build when we get there. It’s only natural that the moon is a target of human yearning. After all, it’s the most visible thing out there in the night sky, rising and setting and waxing and waning, provoking that sense of wonder in all of us, often from childhood. Between now and 2030, no fewer than 84 moon missions—prominently including NASA’s Artemis missions—are planned, some by nations and some by private companies. National Geographic is partnering with the agency on Artemis II, which aims to put astronauts into lunar orbit next year before humans finally set foot back on the…

PLUS: How the vape pen conquered the joint, why fake pot comes with real risks, and what high-octane cannabis means for the teenage brain…

SIERRA CALLAHAM WAS 23 when she had her first monthlong bout of daily abdominal pain, nausea, and cyclical vomiting. She was bewildered but chalked it up to stress—work had been rough, and she was on the outs with her family. Antinausea and antianxiety meds got her through most days, and in the evenings, when she wasn’t actively vomiting, she kept up her usual routine of smoking a little pot. She wanted so badly, she says, “to relax and not be as present in my body.” Callaham lives in Washington State, where recreational cannabis has been legal since 2012, and she had long been a daily if moderate user: a bit each night, as a sleep aid. Before her first gastrointestinal ordeal, in late 2020, she was vaping concentrated cannabis oil…

Halfway through a conversation about the state of modern astrophysics and space science, Joseph Silk says something that makes you sputter in disbelief, before realizing he’s not joking. Silk is one of the pillars of cosmology. Now 82, he’s been an astrophysicist since before the Apollo moon landings. He has made foundational discoveries about the origin of the universe and about its central mystery, dark matter. He’s not prone to wild exaggerations. He’s talking about one of his strong professional interests: the often overlooked potential of our own moon. A few decades from now, Silk says, we’ll have the ability to place a telescope on the lunar surface that will be so powerful that it could, for instance, photograph a planet within the TRAPPIST-1 system, about 40 light-years away, with…

Reporting in this article is presented by the National Geographic Society in partnership with Rolex under the National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Ocean Expeditions. WE KNOW ALMOST NOTHING about the deep seafloor. After decades of exploration, it is still the least understood habitat on Earth. This blind spot has long vexed National Geographic Explorer Katy Croff Bell, who has led dozens of ocean expeditions around the world. After all, the deep sea encompasses some two-thirds of the globe and plays a key role in sequestering carbon and regulating the climate. So Bell and a few other researchers recently set out to quantify the gaps in our knowledge. The results were even worse than they thought: A mere .001 percent of the deep seafloor has been visually observed. They found…

IN A WHITE-WALLED LAB inside the vast manufacturing facility of California cannabis company Raw Garden, the bouquet of marijuana is unmistakable, even without a plant or bud in sight. Technicians in lab coats monitor armoire-size machines that rattle as they refine flask after multi-liter flask of amber-colored, cannabis-scented oil. In a room around the corner, near a row of vacuum ovens, the same extracted oil has been used to make an array of concoctions set out on steel tables in trays, jars, and Pyrex dishes. They range from viscous semiliquids that ooze like tree sap to creamy pastes resembling peanut butter. A few trays contain glasslike golden shards, and there’s a crystallizing substance akin to aging honey. Together the products represent a substantial shift in how Americans consume pot: Year…

ROBERTO ROJO was inside the cave when the roof cracked open and a massive drill churned thundering through. Stalactites tumbling, Rojo ducked for cover, holding out his phone, the biologist and outspoken cave explorer capturing the moment that a spectacular limestone chamber in the Yucatan Peninsula of southeastern Mexico was destroyed. A rusty steel pillar, about four feet in diameter and 80 feet tall, was later jammed into the hole by the industrial drill rig on the surface above. The hollow pillar was pumped full of cement, some of which spilled into the crystalline water partially filling the cenote, as a sinkhole or cave system with an underground reservoir is known. Rust flakes shedding from the pillar mixed with loose cement, and a dark stain spread across the pool. Nearby, a…

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC EXPLORERS These contributors have received funding from the National Geographic Society, which is committed to illuminating and protecting the wonder of our world. Learn more about the Society’s support of Explorers at natgeo.com/impact. Victor Adewale, p.40 For this issue, the photographer documented the daredevil motorcyclists who convey passengers in his home city of Lagos, Nigeria. An Explorer since 2024, Adewale often trains his camera on those working in the informal economy. This is his first piece for the magazine. Robbie Shone, p.108 An experienced cave photographer, Shone traveled to Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula for this month’s feature on Tren Maya, a much debated new rail system that threatens natural subterranean reservoirs. An Explorer since 2018, he lives in Innsbruck, Austria. Hannah Nordhaus, p.14 The Colorado-based writer, an Explorer since 2019,…

THEY CALL IT THE HOLY GRAIL of pain-relief research: a medicine that is comparable to the strongest opioids but lacks their potentially devastating side effects. When biophysicist and structural biologist Kaavya Krishna Kumar set out looking for a novel way to develop one, she knew she needed to start with a substance that hit the body incredibly hard. So she took to the seedier corners of the online forum Reddit, where she learned about an illicit street drug with a reputation for making people both very high and very sick. “It’s OUT OF THIS WORLD POTENT,” read one recreational user’s post. “A very, very small, almost invisible amount of powder skyrockets you into stoned euphoria.” The drug is called FUBINACA, and it’s what’s known as a synthetic cannabinoid, a molecule…

JUST AFTER MIDNIGHT, Elle Barbeito drove her Dodge pickup deep into the shadows of the Florida Everglades. After hours navigating narrow marsh roads, past towering bald cypresses and raucous shoots of bromeliads, she suddenly pulled onto the shoulder and aimed a flashlight at a writhing patch of prehistoric-looking ferns. “Python!” Barbeito shouted, pointing to a metallic sheen of scales glistening like silken chain mail in the moonlight. The next part would require her gun. No one can say for certain how Burmese pythons arrived in the Everglades in the first place or how many there are today, though conservative estimates put their population in the tens of thousands. What we do know is that the voracious snakes are destroying one of the country’s most important ecosystems by reproducing rapidly and…