The Atlantic

Grounded

On Mars, in the belly of a rover named Perseverance, a titanium tube holds a stone more precious than any diamond or ruby on Earth. The robot spotted it in 2024 along the banks of a Martian riverbed and zapped it with an ultraviolet laser. It contained...

The Most Powerful Man in Science

The Dead Zones

By mid-century, many places in the United States may be uninhabitable.

THE UNFINISHED REVOLUTION

behind the cover: The Atlantic’s November 2025 issue commemorates the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution. For our cover image, the artist Joe Mckendry painted a tableau of fgures drawn from the stories in the issue. Some of the fgures will be...

The Invention of Judd Apatow

My Father’s Work

In August 2000, when I was 2 years old, my mother put me in a maroon velvet dress and stuck foam earplugs in my ears. She carried me through the backstage corridors of the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium—the same venue where, in 1964, James Brown gave...

EIGHTY YEARS ON THE EDGE

U.S. soldiers watch a nuclear test in Nevada, 1951.

LIFE WITH A HIGHRISK EARLY BREAST CANCER DIAGNOSIS

Sarrah Strimel Bentley was the picture of good health. She was a Broadway performer, a yoga instructor, only 38 years old, when she was diagnosed with HR+ (hormone receptor–positive), HER2- (human epidermal growth factor receptor 2–negative) high-risk...

Donald Trump Is Enjoying This

The president explains how he plans to change America forever.

IT'S LATER THANK YOU THINK

THE GIRLS OF SUMMER

Women have always loved America’s pastime. It has never loved them back.

Around the Globe, Governments Lean into AI

Governments around the globe are in a high-stakes race to develop cutting-edge AI systems. But how exactly are they using the technology for their own operations, and what might their progress tell us about the growth and development of AI worldwide?

Why India is losing faith in its strongman leader

On a winter afternoon in January 2024, Prime Minister Narendra Modi stood before a podium, gazing out at a handpicked audience of the Indian elite: billionaires, Bollywood actors, cricket stars, nationalist politicians. Modi had come to the...

Housing a Legacy

Most design aficionados would likely agree that if a vehicle were to be translated into a physical space—say, a house—they’d most want to spend time in a Range Rover. But translating brand values like high design, sleek performance, and...

Catching the Carjackers

On August 7, 2022, Shantise Summers arrived home from a night out with friends around 2:40 a.m. As she walked from her car toward her apartment in Oxon Hill, a Maryland neighborhood just southeast of Washington, D.C., she heard footsteps behind her....

MENOPAUSE IS MORE THAN A MOMENT

Each year, 2 million women in the U.S. reach menopause, a life stage marked by the permanent cessation of menstrual periods for 12 months, which most commonly occurs in women between their mid 40s and early 50s.1 By 2030, the global population of...

An Intoxicating 500-Year-old Mystery

The Voynich Manuscript has long baffled scholars—and attracted cranks and conspiracy theorists. Now a prominent medievalist is taking a new approach to unlocking its secrets.