Lifestyle
Solar eclipse myths and rumors bubble up, from radiation to food poisoning
People visit a NASA information booth to grab solar eclipse glasses in Russellville, Arkansas. The space agency has debunked a number of myths about the total solar eclipse — including ideas about food going bad, or unborn babies being harmed.
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People visit a NASA information booth to grab solar eclipse glasses in Russellville, Arkansas. The space agency has debunked a number of myths about the total solar eclipse — including ideas about food going bad, or unborn babies being harmed.
Mario Tama/Getty Images
Will a solar eclipse harm a pregnant woman’s baby if she looks at it? Does an eclipse emit special radiation that can instantly blind you?
Those are some of the ideas people have been asking about — and that experts have been pooh-poohing — as people in North America anticipated seeing a total eclipse, from Mazatlán to Montreal.
Monday’s total solar eclipse begins over Mexico’s Pacific Coast at around 11:07 a.m. PT, moving east through Texas and up to Maine, finally leaving the continent on Newfoundland’s Atlantic coast.
Solar eclipses have long triggered fanciful explanations and warnings, from religious mythology to modern-day superstition. In recent days, for instance, a message circulated online warning people to turn off their cellphones and other devices before midnight ahead of the eclipse, warning of powerful radiation and cosmic rays.
In reality, a solar eclipse brings a temporary sharp drop in solar radiation — an event that ham radio operators have been eagerly anticipating for months, with competitions and experiments looking to fill the Earth’s suddenly radiation-free ionosphere with radio signals.
Persistent but unfounded beliefs even prompted NASA to devote a special page to debunking misconceptions about a solar eclipse.
Total eclipses don’t produce rays that cause blindness, NASA says
During totality, electromagnetic radiation from the sun’s corona will not harm you. In fact, the only time it’s safe to look at the sun without eye protection, as the sun’s brightness is fully obscured by the moon and its corona is visible.
But outside of totality, your eyes can be harmed during an eclipse. If the sun is only partially obscured, looking at it will damage your retina. You can look if you have special solar glasses, but don’t count on those to protect you if you want to use a telescope or camera lens that doesn’t have a solar filter.
As NASA says, “the concentrated solar rays will burn through the filter and cause serious eye injury.”
Another thing to remember: Take breaks if you’re using a special filter to look at the sun before or after totality. As the space agency says, the sun’s infrared radiation can make you uncomfortable, “as it literally warms the eye.”
You should look away from the sun periodically, or use an indirect viewer like a pinhole projector to track the eclipse.
More things NASA says are NOT true about a total solar eclipse
MYTH: If you are pregnant you should not watch an eclipse because it can harm your baby.
Another notion that seems to be rooted in concern about radiation. To put people’s mind at ease, NASA employs a sort of “you’re already soaking in it” example, citing the neutrino particles produced by the sun’s nuclear fusion:
“Every second, your body is pelted by trillions of these neutrinos no matter if the sun is above or below the horizon. The only consequence is that every few minutes a few atoms in your body are transmuted into a different isotope by absorbing a neutrino. This is an entirely harmless effect and would not harm you, or if you are pregnant, the developing fetus.”
MYTH: Eclipses will poison any food that is prepared during the event.
NASA gives a hypothetical: What if some bad potato salad makes people sick during an eclipse? Food poisoning is very common — and it shouldn’t be blamed on a rare celestial event, the agency notes.
“The basic idea is that total solar eclipses are terrifying and their ghostly green coronae look frightening, so it is natural to want to make up fearful stories about them and look for coincidences among events around you.”
Other myths have to do with omens and major events
Here are four that NASA singles out for debunking:
MYTH: Eclipses are harbingers of something very bad about to happen.
MYTH: Solar Eclipses foretell major life changes and events about to happen.
MYTH: Solar eclipses are a sign of an exceptional celestial event taking place in time and space.
MYTH: Solar eclipses six months after your birthday, or on your birthday, are a sign of impending bad health.
NASA ascribes many of these ideas to astrological forecasts being propped up by confirmation bias.
As the agency says, “We tend to remember all the occasions when two things happened together, but forget all of the other times when they did not.”
Other myths — such as the idea that the moon turns black during an eclipse, or that the Earth’s two poles don’t see eclipses — are simply false, the agency says.
Eclipses have deep spiritual meanings
Ideas about an eclipse’s potentially powerful effects aren’t new. In fact, solar eclipses do also cause some unusual things to happen.
People in totality can expect to feel a sudden drop in temperature, for instance. Stars and planets become visible in the middle of the day, and humans can experience a range of odd visual effects — from the sharpness of shadows to the movement of “shadow bands” and a change in how we perceive color.
Then there’s the eerie effect of the eclipse moving from west to east, adding to the perception that time isn’t moving in its normal path.
Many cultures and religions link eclipses to energy, seeing them as events of renewal and promise — or in some cases, of vital energy being drained away.
For the Ojibwe and other Indigenous peoples in the Great Lakes region, a story about a solar eclipse centers on a boy and his sister who trap the sun after it burns him.
In many folktales, magical animals try to eat the sun or the moon. In Hindu mythology, a serpent god, Rahu Ketu, wanted to eat the sun — but then his head was cut off. That created two new entities, Rahu and Ketu, according to the Folklife Today blog from the Library of Congress.
“These are the deities of eclipses and comets. Rahu is fixated on eating the sun and the moon, and will try to catch them and gobble them up,” the blog notes. “Fortunately he only succeeds once in a while. Since his head was cut off, the sun or moon just falls out the hole where his neck used to be. This is an eclipse.”
As Folklife Today notes, in many cultures, humans take up the duty of ending an eclipse, often by making noise and beating on drums or gongs to dispel the spirit that’s attempting to take the sun.
Dara and her song “Bangaranga” skyrocketed Bulgaria to first place at the 70th Eurovision Song Contest
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Bulgaria has won the 70th Eurovision Song Contest — the country’s first-ever win.
The achievement surprised many because Bulgaria wasn’t among the favorites to win in 2026. But with its catchy “Welcome to the riot!” refrain and bouncy vibe, performer Dara’s banging anthem “Bangaranga” bested 24 other nations for the glittery global musical crown at the finals on Saturday in Vienna, Austria.
Israel came in second, as it did last year. Ten competitors were eliminated from the original group of 35 in the semi-finals earlier this week.
In his appraisal of his 10 favorite Eurovision 2026 songs, NPR critic Glen Weldon called “Bangaranga” an “insanely catchy bop” and praised its “deep, profound, abiding grooviness.”
“Oh my god!” Dara yelled, as she accepted the Crystal Microphone, the event’s glass trophy, from last year’s winner, JJ of Austria.
As with other global cultural events, such as the Venice Biennale currently underway in Italy, the glittery annual songfest is intended as a display of goodwill and togetherness between nations. “In a world often divided, we stand united by music,” said host Michael Ostrowski at the conclusion of this year’s event.
Last year’s contest, held in Basel, Switzerland, saw record viewership, reaching 166 million viewers across 37 markets.
Israel prepared for ‘boos’
Eurovision has long strived to prioritize artistry over political antagonism. However, as with the Biennale, Eurovision 2026 found itself at the center of protests related to the war in Gaza.
Five countries — Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Spain — pulled out between September and December 2025 in protest over event organizer European Broadcasting Union’s decision to allow Israel to participate amid the ongoing war in Gaza.
In this year’s finals, Israeli singer Noam Bettan performed the romantic breakup song “Michelle” in French, Hebrew and English. Unlike in the semifinal, when the artist sang over chants of “stop the genocide,” Bettan was not booed — at least audibly. The artist told The Times of Israel last month he had been practicing performing in front of hecklers.
There were both anti- and pro-Israel demonstrations in Vienna this week.
Pro-Palestinian protests at the last two contests called for Israel to be disbarred from Eurovision over its role in the conflict, as well as allegations it attempted to manipulate voting to favor its entries. The European Broadcasting Union changed its voting rules in response. Among other requirements, contestants and broadcasters are prohibited from taking part in promotional campaigns by third parties including governments. Countries outside of Europe, such as Israel, participate in Eurovision because eligibility is based on European Broadcasting Union membership, not necessarily geographics.
A double standard?
Although Israel’s participation is the biggest cause of dissent in 2026, the country avoided being banned from the event.
That was not the case with Russia, which was disbarred indefinitely from participating in the contest soon after launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
European Broadcasting Union deputy director general Jean Philip De Tender defended his organization’s decision to allow Israel to perform, the European edition of Politico reported ahead of the contest’s final, because Israel’s public broadcaster KAN, the body behind its entry, is independent, whereas Russia’s state broadcaster, VGTRK, is run by the Russian government.
In a social media post on Friday, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez decried the European Broadcasting Union for its “double standard.”
This story is part of Image’s May Momentum issue, which looks at art as a sport and sport as an art.
I love reading about artists’ processes and routines. Toni Morrison wrote before dawn, before her children awoke and she had to go to her publishing job. In the evenings, Maya Angelou cleaned and put away all her dishes before she sat with what she had written that morning. Louise Bourgeois only worked in complete silence. These rules and routines are reminders that art takes work — and immense amounts of energy.
I grew up with parents who are also artists and had to find time for their projects between life and daily obligations. My father wrote in the early mornings; my mother painted in the hours after lunch and before we were done with school. It normalized for me the intentional carving out of time needed for writing, reading and creating. This has meant that I’m almost always busy doing something, and sometimes tired, but when I don’t carve that time, I’m guaranteed to be in a bad mood, like the hanger that comes from skipping a meal.
In Viv Chen’s interview with Tory Burch, the designer compares her workdays to being “like an athlete where it’s about discipline and grit and endurance.” It’s a sentiment that sums up much of the spirit of this issue, which looks at art as a sport and sport as an art. Whether you’re playing fútbol, sewing clothes or staging a performance, it’s a physical as well as mental game.
Above all, the artist-athletes in these pages show us the rewards of their commitments. We witness this in the sizzling images of Tory Burch shoes pounding the hot Los Angeles pavement and in the sportswear designs that Otis students worked on for months, the results literally glowing and electric. We witness this in the portraits of Betye Saar, regally dressed in a Gucci kaftan for what will likely be the last exhibition she’s involved in during her lifetime. We witness this in the image of our fútbol queen on the cover, strong, reverent and at peace. These stories are all reminders that dedication to one’s craft is not just life-giving, it’s what makes life worth living.
Elisa Wouk Almino Editor in chief
Jess Aquino de Jesus Design Director
Julissa James Staff Writer
Claire Salinda Staff Writer
Keyla Marquez Fashion Director at Large
Elizabeth Burr Art Director
Jamie Sholberg Art Director, Web
Samantha Lee Editorial Intern
Jennelle Fong Contributing Photographer
Tyler Matthew Oyer
Contributing Photographer
Mere Studios Contributing Producer
Cecilia Alvarez Blackwell
Contributing Producer
Dave Schilling Contributing Writer
Harmony Holiday Contributing Writer
Goth Shakira Contributing Writer
Cover
Fashion Direction Keyla Marquez
Creative Direction Keyla Marquez
Photography Guicho Palma
Styling Julianna Aguirre Martinez
Talent Yusra, Natalie Renelle Muñoz,
Dylan D. Lopez
Hair Jeanette Ponce
Makeup Selena Ruiz
Nails Tatiana Calderon
Production Cecilia Alvarez Blackwell
Styling Assistant Matzi
Videographer Abraham Anzurez Galindo
Gaffer James Armas
Photo Assistants Monica Zulema,
Diego Luciano
Image Flag Bas van Brandwijk
Ken Jennings attends Kennections during the 2026 TCM Classic Film Festival on April 30, 2026 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Araya Doheny/Getty Images for TCM)
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This week’s show was recorded in Chicago with host Peter Sagal, judge and scorekeeper Bill Kurtis, Not My Job guest Ken Jennings and panelists Tom Bodett, Joyelle Nicole Johnson, and Faith Salie. Click the audio link above to hear the whole show.
Who’s Bill This Time
ou Cruise, You Lose; Renovations on the Mall; A New Game Show For Word Nerds
Panel Questions
No Justice For Plumbers
Bluff The Listener
Our panelists tell three stories about an unusual situation on the beach, only one of which is true.
Not My Job: Jeopardy‘s Ken Jennings lives down his demons and answers our three questions about H&R Block
Peter talks to Jeopardy legend and host Ken Jennings. Ken plays our game called, “What is H&R Block?” Three questions about H&R Block, the subject of the Jeopardy question Ken got wrong and it ended his 74 game win streak.
Panel Questions
Open Your Heart and Lock Up Your Assets; Restaurants Get Clingy
Limericks
Bill Kurtis reads three news-related limericks: Uranus Overshadowed; Running From Romance; Double Date Danger
Lightning Fill In The Blank
All the news we couldn’t fit anywhere else
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Our panelists predict, what will be the next show made out something we do to kill time?
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