National Geographic Magazine

THE ONGOING PROJECT of protecting natural lands and waters isn’t a uniquely American effort. But it’s one that the United States has enshrined and elaborated to a greater degree than any other country on the planet. Our world-famous national parks have captured imaginations for more than a century (the federal system was established in 1916). My friend Conor Knighton has traveled to every single park, a journey he documented in his 2020 book, Leave Only Footprints. The rest of us can virtually visit some this month when a new season of National Geographic’s series America’s National Parks begins streaming on Disney+. Of course, there are other federally protected areas. National marine sanctuaries. National wildlife refuges. National monuments. National forests. For this issue’s cover story, writer Peter Gwin and photographer Katie Orlinsky take…

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC VOL. 243 NO. 6 Working in pitch-dark nights of the American West, a photographer casts ultraviolet light to reveal scenes that seem supernatural.…

AS NIGHT BEGAN TO FALL after a day of hiking and photographing on Washington State’s Mount Rainier, Cody Cobb considered heading home. But instead, he reached for something in his bag—a gadget he’d tossed in with his gear on a whim. He had never used the ultraviolet light and decided to try a few shots for fun before packing up. What Cobb saw in his viewfinder was so mesmerizing he ended up staying on the mountain until 4 a.m. By setting his camera on a slow shutter speed, anywhere from 30 seconds to four minutes, and waving the light in front of his subject, he discovered “a parallel world” not normally visible to the human eye. A self-taught photographer originally from rural Louisiana, Cobb grew up playing video games and reading science…

IN THIS SECTION Bubbly Breathing Libidinous Bees Visions of a ‘Kilonova’ Channel Islands Park ILLUM INATING THE MYSTERIES—AND WONDERS—ALL AROUND US EVERY DAY NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC | VOL. 243 NO. 6 NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES grew up in Waterloo, Iowa, where most of her family still lives. As an 11-year-old she wrote a letter to the editor of her local newspaper about a presidential primary. In 2017 she received a MacArthur Foundation fellowship, known as the “genius grant,” for her work on educational inequality. Close ties to her community contributed to a thirst to share deeper knowledge of the American past and present, which place the enslavement of Africans at the center of the American story. To commemorate the 400th anniversary of the beginning of slavery in what would become the United States, Hannah-Jones created an extensive project…

DISPATCHES FROM THE FRONT LINES OF SCIENCE AND INNOVATION Most of the elements that fill up the universe (and our periodic table) come from extreme cosmic explosions. One such kablooey, the “kilonova,” yields many of the elements heavier than iron, including much of the universe’s gold. Triggering a kilonova, though, takes a specific scenario: the collision of two neutron stars, the ultradense leftovers from stars that died in supernovae. What are these collisions’ origin stories? In a first, a study in the journal Nature has shown that a star system within the Milky Way is doomed to end in a kilonova. The system, known as CPD-29 2176, is 11,000 light-years from us in the Milky Way’s outskirts. It consists of a neutron star with a circular 60-day orbit around a hot, spinning…

THE BUOYS MARKING Virginia Oliver’s lobster traps bear an ID number she inherited from her father. Now it’s Oliver’s son Max working 200 traps with her in Maine’s lobster fishery—as 102-year-old Oliver has done across nine decades. The debate over how the fishery affects endangered right whales has cost Maine lobster its sustainable seafood rating in two major guides. But a half hour before daybreak in season, mother and son still are putting out to sea, greeting fellow lobstermen with a wave or shout. “I might just go until I die,” Oliver says. “That’s when I’m going to quit.” —TED GUP…