At least 22 reported tornadoes touched down across the southern Plains and South-Central U.S. on Tuesday, as forecasters alert for more potential twisters in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri and parts of Illinois, tearing trees out of the ground, ripping roofs off of homes and knocking down power lines.
Details: According to the National Weather Service, the most severe storms are expected along a 1,000-mile stretch from central Texas to central Illinois, while the greatest risk for tornadoes centers on an area from south-central Oklahoma to southwestern Missouri. The risk of isolated tornadoes, high winds, baseball-sized hail and torrential downpours remains throughout the evening, while severe thunderstorms are likely to expand across the Midwest into Wednesday as a spring storm shifts east.
A new mission concept building on the legacy of NASA’s Cassini spacecraft would study Saturn’s rings, giving us an unprecedented view of the distant world’s most stunning feature.
Why it matters: While Cassini transformed our understanding of Saturn over the course of its 13-year mission, the spacecraft also left the science community with many questions to answer.
What's new: Scientists have figured out what causes the cosmic phenomenon affectionately known as STEVE — a mauve-colored streak that appears farther south than where auroras typically are visible.
Dozens of companies around the world are looking to tap into the market for launching small payloads into orbit. If they succeed, it could reshape the space industry.
Why it matters: Historically, small satellites have hitched rides to space as secondary payloads on large rockets like SpaceX’s Falcon 9. But upstart rocket companies don’t think that small satellites, meant for beaming satellite internet to Earth, for example, should be forced to launch based on the readiness of a larger payload, like a communications satellite.
Tropical Cyclone Fani is intensifying over the western Bay of Bengal, and it is forecast to hit somewhere between the Indian states of coastal Odisha and West Bengal as a potentially devastating Category 4 or greater storm as this weekend approaches.
Why it matters: Coastal India as well as neighboring Bangladesh are extraordinarily vulnerable to the range of hazards such storms bring, including high winds, storm surge flooding and inland flooding from heavy rainfall.
