Eclipses and Last Week's News and Research

An eclipse is when one celestial object casts a shadow on another. They occur during the alignment of three bodies in space, known as a syzygy, in which one body blocks light from a second body from reaching the third. On Earth, this is most commonly associated with the moon blocking the sun—a solar eclipse—and the Earth blocking sunlight from reaching the moon—a lunar eclipse.

> Total solar eclipses are coincidences that will no longer exist in the distant future.
> If the moon passes between the sun and Earth each month, why don't we observe monthly solar eclipses?

Once considered a bad omen linked to a displeased sun god or to the attempted destruction of the sun, the term "eclipse" derives from a Greek word meaning "to forsake." By the fifth century BCE, patterns in the frequency of eclipses and the motions of the sun and moon allowed ancient astronomers to predict future occurrences. These events were used to demonstrate that the Earth was round and to determine the size of and distance to the moon more than two millennia ago.

> Many cultures viewed solar eclipses as resulting from mythical creatures almost eating the sun.

> Identical eclipses repeat about once every 6,585 days, and a 2,000-year-old analog computer could predict them.

> Extraterrestrial solar eclipses helped scientists in the 1600s realize that light did not travel at infinite speed.

Since then, eclipses have led to improved understanding of the sun's corona, or outer atmosphere, the discovery of helium, and the validation of general relativity. Analyses of blocked starlight from beyond the solar system have contributed to the discovery of binary star systems—pairs of orbiting stars—and almost three-quarters of known exoplanets.

> View a gallery of eclipses on other planets, including Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.

> Watch how stars eclipse each other in multistar systems, where 85% of stars are thought to exist.

Discover more:

> A solar eclipse that ended a half-decade-long war in 585 BCE may have also been the first to be successfully predicted.

> Blood moons can only occur during lunar eclipses thanks to Earth's atmosphere.

> Why does viewing a solar eclipse require eclipse glasses, and what makes them special?

Keep learning by exploring all our findings on Eclipses here.

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News in Context

1440 brings you the knowledge and context behind the week's stories:

Google rolled back an AI tool after announcing its addition to Google Earth a day earlier, amid concerns about disinformation. (More)

> Deepfakes, like some maps users could create with the tool, are intentionally created to deceive users.

> Amid increasingly available AI tools, explore tips for spotting AI-generated images.

New data centers are blocked from connecting to Texas' electric grid until projects pass a state audit involving water and electricity use. (More)

> Hyperscale AI data centers consume about as much electricity annually as 400,000 electric vehicles. 

> As of 2025, each short conversation with ChatGPT consumes approximately one pint of water.

SpaceX to develop Starlink Mobile wireless ground network to compete with other mobile carriers, according to earnings call. (More)

> Starlink relies on satellites in low Earth orbit that act as relays to connect users to the internet.

> Starlink covers more than 99% of the US, but what about other wireless carriers?

Temperatures in the Arctic repeatedly surpassed 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32.2 degrees Celsius) last week. (More)

> Explore real-time weather conditions around the world with this interactive map. 

> The Arctic warms more quickly than the rest of the planet due to mechanisms involving water vapor, vertical circulation, and a loss of albedo.

Research Spotlight

Like all great researchers, we love spending time learning about the latest breakthroughs across science and technology. Here's what we found this week.

Scientists suggest that seismic waves can be used to detect ice on the moon.

University of Maryland | Georgia Jiang. Because ice-rich regions respond differently to seismic activity than dry-soil regions do, seismometers, which are currently used to measure seismic waves from earthquakes and reveal properties of Earth's interior, may help detect underground lunar ice. Uncovering such ice can, once processed, provide drinking water, breathable oxygen, and hydrogen fuel for astronauts. (More)

> Water was not confirmed to exist on the moon's sunlit surface until 2020.

> Several private companies are seeking to harvest lunar helium-3 for nuclear fusion.

Antineutrinos emitted by spent nuclear fuel were measured for the first time.

Max Planck Institute | Staff. Long after nuclear reactors have been shut down, the products of nuclear reactions continue to decay and emit antineutrinos, among the most difficult particles to observe in the universe. The detection of about 100 residual radioactivity events was consistent with predictions and simulations, opening the door to new potential mechanisms for reactor monitoring. (More)

> Antineutrinos are the antimatter version of neutrinos, the most abundant matter particles in the universe.

> ... but what is antimatter?

If elected bodies are fixed in size, mathematics shows that completely fair elections are impossible.

University of Cambridge | Staff. An analysis of different electoral systems found that each entails inevitable trade-offs between ensuring that every vote translates into a representative seat and achieving a distribution of seats proportional to the share of votes obtained. These trade-offs were found to be exacerbated with more parties in the system but could be alleviated by increasing the number of seats. (More)

> Data from 2025 suggests that 34 countries have fairer elections than the US.

> How did the Electoral College elect five presidents who lost the popular vote? 

A new AI tool can analyze job interview videos in 65% less time.

EurekAlert! | Shogo Okada. Inspired by the brain's selective attention, the AI model uses audio cues to determine which frames have visual information worth analyzing and allocates processing resources accordingly. When tested on a dataset of 1,891 two-minute clips, the model ignored about 85% of the visual data but improved its accuracy by ignoring idle or repetitive frames that provided statistical noise. (More)

> Almost 90% of companies use some form of AI in their hiring processes.

> Learn what to expect and how to prepare for an interview with an AI bot.

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Etcetera

> Avocado trees change sex throughout the day and have been doing so for about 42 million years.

> By including chunks of limestone, Roman cement could spontaneously self-heal.

> Spider silk comes in seven varieties, but are they really stronger than Kevlar?

> The world's oldest nuclear fission reactor was naturally forged in West Africa about 2 billion years ago.

> While numbers like 3 and 7 might seem important, why do mathematicians consider 6, 28, and 496 to be perfect numbers? 

> The microbiome of the Great Barrier Reef includes an estimated 362,802 viruses.

> Wildfires can become more dangerous by fueling lightning-generating fire clouds.
 

> One of the world's eight lava lakes is located in a regularly erupting Antarctic volcano.

> You can make lemons and limes taste like sugarcoated candy with miracle berries.
 

> Earth's gravitational field makes the planet look like a lumpy potato.

> Famed cryptographer Alan Turing came up with a system to explain how some animals get their spots, stripes, and other patterns.

> Based on research spending, capital investment, and patents, what are America's most innovative states?