At a news conference at the Johnson Space Center in Texas, NASA announced the astronauts assigned to crew the first flight tests and missions of commercial spaceflight launches, aboard the Boeing CST-100 Starliner and SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, .
Why it matters: These crew members will be the first American astronauts to launch to space aboard rockets made in America, from American soil since the U.S. retired the Space Shuttle in 2011.
The fire whirl, or fire tornado, that swept into Redding, California on July 26, appears to have had winds as strong — if not stronger than — an EF-3 tornado, according to the National Weather Service.
Why it matters: The Carr Fire now ranks as one of the state's largest and most destructive wildfires on record. The extreme fire behavior exhibited on July 26 allowed the blaze to jump a natural fire break — the Sacramento River, and enter the city of Redding. So far, the fire has claimed at least 6 lives.
A building heat wave in Portugal and Spain threatens to topple national and all-time high temperature records in a continuation of a series of remarkable heat waves that have roasted the Northern Hemisphere this summer.
The big picture: The heat wave will be most intense in Portugal, Spain and parts of France, although the U.K. will also see above average temperatures for this time of year. In Spain and Portugal, the fire danger will climb to dangerous levels as temperatures soar, humidity levels plunge, and downslope winds increase.
A team of U.K.-based scientists have identified a group of planets outside our solar system that have similar chemical conditions that likely led to the formation of life on Earth.
The big picture: The scientists found a collection of planets with the potential to host water that also have stars positioned to potentially provide ideal conditions of both light and temperature that could set off the necessary chemical reactions to form life.
