Japanese authorities ordered more than 1 million people to evacuate 3 cities in Kagoshima Prefecture on the island of Kyushu on Wednesday, as heavy rains threatened to trigger flooding and landslides, the Japan Times reports.
The big picture: Nearly 40 inches of rain have fallen in parts of southern Kyushu since Friday, per Reuters. Forecasters warn as much as 14 inches could still fall there through Thursday. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe put the military on standby for rescues. His government was criticized last year for a slow response to heavy rains that caused landslides and floods that killed more than 200 people, Reuters notes.
Crowds gathered across parts of Chile and Argentina to see a rare total solar eclipse on Tuesday.
Details: While most of the continent will be able to see at least a partial eclipse, only a relatively small swath of South America will be able to observe totality — when the Moon fully blocks the light of the Sun, dimming daylight and bathing the planet in darkness.
NASA's newly selected Dragonfly mission to Saturn’s largest moon Titan will mark a new way of exploring the solar system for the space agency.
The big picture: Dragonfly's unique design will allow scientists to get a full picture of Titan's various environments over the course of its mission. Instead of staying in one place like a lander or driving along the surface like a rover, Dragonfly will be able to fly through Titan's thick atmosphere, land and then take off again.
As NASA pushes to the Moon with its Artemis program, the old Apollo narratives of American exceptionalism and human settlement of space haven't changed significantly.
The big picture: Today's lunar aspirations build on Apollo-era ideas of space colonization, suggesting that creating settlements in the solar system could insulate humanity from existential threats faced on Earth.
While the broader narratives surrounding Artemis and Apollo are similar, the missions themselves — and the specific motivations behind them — are very different.
The big picture: The Apollo missions were motivated by a desire to beat the Soviet Union to the Moon by landing on the lunar surface first.
NASA successfully tested the escape system for the Orion crew capsule Tuesday that would be used to pull a crew of astronauts away from a failing rocket in the moments after launch.
Why it matters: This uncrewed test marked an important step toward NASA's goal of landing astronauts back on the surface of the Moon as part of its Artemis program by 2024.
