About 1.5 million Floridians have moved inland to avoid the wrath of Hurricane Dorian. Such evacuations can be perilous — but in the future, networks of automated vehicles could help shuttle people out of harm's way more efficiently.
The big picture: Two colliding trends will likely make evacuations in this storm-prone population center trickier in the meantime, however. People are moving to south Florida in huge numbers, which will put far more people at risk. And battery-powered AVs and the infrastructure to support them are still a long way off.
Hurricane Dorian is lashing Florida's northeast coast with tropical conditions, with dangerous winds and coastal flooding reported in the state as the deadly storm heads toward the U.S.
The big picture: Dorian was downgraded to a Category 2 storm on Tuesday, but the National Hurricane Center warns that it'll remain a powerful hurricane, and it's forecast to move near or over the Carolinas' coast Thursday through Friday morning. States of emergency have been declared in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia. Mandatory evacuations had been taking place in the 5 states since the weekend, affecting millions of people, per ABC News
President Trump's pitch to create a Space Force is championed by supporters as a way to deter nations that plan to weaponize space.
Why it matters: Some experts warn that the U.S.' renewed focus on space weaponization is actually validating adversaries that hope to bolster their own military uses of outer space.
Last week, SpaceX launched the final test of Starhopper, a prototype of its Starship spacecraft that is designed to eventually take 100 people at a time to deep space destinations like the Moon or Mars.
Context: SpaceX is building on the reusability of its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets with Starship, but the new interplanetary system will have some key differences.
Scientists have developed a fingerprint of Earth from space that could one day help identify other habitable worlds light-years from our own.
Why it matters: If researchers find a planet that matched Earth's fingerprint — which shows what Earth would look like in infrared if seen by an alien civilization — out there in the universe, it could indicate they've found a habitable world.
The National Weather Service issued a tweet Sunday to stress that Hurricane Dorian will have no impact on Alabama after President Trump claimed that the state would be affected by the category 5 storm.
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