Latest news with #NationalEnvironmentalSatellite
CTV News
3 days ago
- Climate
- CTV News
Heavy rains expected in Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands as Hurricane Erin nears
Satellite imagery from the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service shows the projected path of Hurricane Erin. (NOAA) SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Erin strengthened into a hurricane on Friday as it approached the northeast Caribbean, prompting forecasters to warn of possible flooding and landslides. The storm is expected to remain over open waters, although tropical storm watches were issued for Anguilla and Barbuda, St. Martin and St. Barts, Saba, St. Eustatius and St. Maarten. Heavy rains were forecast to start late Friday in Antigua and Barbuda, the U.S. and British Virgin Islands, and southern and eastern Puerto Rico. Up to 10 centimetres is expected, with isolated totals of up to 15 centimetres, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami. Forecasters also warned of dangerous swells. The storm was located about 740 kilometres east of the Northern Leeward Islands. It had maximum sustained winds of 120 km/h and was moving west-northwest at 30 km/h. Hurricane specialist and storm surge expert Michael Lowry said Erin is forecast to eventually take a sharp turn northeast that would put it on a path between the U.S. and Bermuda. 'The forecasts for next week still keep the future hurricane safely east of the mainland U.S.,' he said. Erin, which is the Atlantic season's first hurricane, is forecast to become a major Category 3 storm late this weekend. Tropical Storm Erin Tropical Storm Erin is seen in satellite imagery from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration captured at 6:20 a.m. EDT on Friday, Aug. 15, 2025. The hurricane centre noted 'there is still uncertainty about what impacts Erin may bring to portions of the Bahamas, the east coast of the United States, and Bermuda in the long range.' Dangerous surf and rip currents are expected to affect the U.S. East Coast next week, with waves reaching up to five metres along parts of the North Carolina coast that could cause beach erosion, according to Accuweather. 'Erin is forecast to explode into a powerful Category 4 hurricane as it moves across very warm waters in the open Atlantic. Water temperatures at the surface and hundreds of feet deep are several degrees higher than the historical average,' said Alex DaSilva, Accuweather's lead hurricane expert. Erin is the fifth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30. This year's season is once again expected to be unusually busy. The forecast calls for six to 10 hurricanes, with three to five reaching major status with winds of more than 177 km/h.
Newsweek
24-06-2025
- Science
- Newsweek
Mysterious Space Signal Traced to Long-Dead NASA Satellite
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. A brief but extremely powerful radio signal thought to have coming from deep space has now been traced to a dead NASA satellite in Earth orbit. Relay 2 was one of a pair of experimental communications satellites, the first launched in 1962 and the second in 1964. The signal from the decommissioned satellite was picked up in June last year—and it lasted less than 30 nanoseconds. Despite the fleeting nature of the burst, the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope. managed to trace it back to its origin. Radio signals from space are not an uncommon occurrence; in fact, telescopes pick up signals all the time coming from pulsars, black holes, massive galaxies, stars and various other cosmic phenomena. But far from being from a distant cosmic source, researchers determined that the fast radio burst (FRB) actually came from the 60's satellite in Earth orbit. Relay 2 satellite pictured by NASA. Relay 2 satellite pictured by NASA. NASA Relay 2 operated for just over a year and a half, at which point the only facility equipped to communicate with it—the Mojave Desert Ground Station—was retasked to a different satellite program. The transponders onboard Relay 2 stopped responding to radio signals in June 1967, after which point the satellite went silent—until last June. According to the researchers, Relay 2 did not miraculously come back online to send a signal to Earth. Instead, they believe that either an electrostatic discharge (ESD) or a plasma discharge following a micrometeoroid impact could have set off the burst. "Our observation opens new possibilities for the remote sensing of ESD, which poses a serious threat to spacecraft, and reveals a new source of false events for observations of astrophysical transients", the researchers say. With limited fuel capacity and subject to wear and tear caused by outer space, satellites don't last forever. But what happens to them after they stop working? The National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service, says that satellites orbiting closer to Earth are typically de‑orbited to burn up in Earth's atmosphere within 25 years, as per the "25‑year rule." However, this is only allowed when operators can show that the probability of injury or property damage is less than 1 in 10,000. When this is not the case, a controlled de-orbit directs the satellite into a remote ocean area, known as the "Spacecraft Cemetery". Satellites that lack sufficient fuel for re‑entry are sent into a graveyard orbit, where their instruments and subsystems are shut down, the remaining fuel is depleted and they are left to orbit indefinitely. Do you have a science story to share with Newsweek? Do you have a question about space? Let us know via science@ James, C. W., Deller, A. T., Dial, T., Glowacki, M., Tingay, S. J., Bannister, K. W., Bera, A., Bhat, N. D. R., Ekers, R. D., Gupta, V., Jaini, A., Morgan, J., Jahns-Schindler, J. N., Shannon, R. M., Sukhov, M., Tuthill, J., & Wang, Z. (2025). A nanosecond-duration radio pulse originating from the defunct Relay 2 satellite.
