Science

The monstrous storm devastated North Carolina, a key swing state in the presidential election. Communities face a long recovery ahead after Helene leveled towns. With so many people displaced and polling locations flooded, officials are worried about how much harder it could be now for people to cast their votes.

NASA and other federal agencies launched a new website last week that shows past, present, and future sea level rise along America’s coastlines. It combines data from satellites with readings from sensors on the ground to create an interactive map.

A report by CBS 17 in Raleigh goes into how some of the communities in North Carolina’s mountains are communicating after the floods.

In Asheville, they said some people and organizations with Starlink satellite dishes have set them up at shelters so others can get online, along with “Satellite Cells on Light Trucks” and other temporary cellular towers.

The rocket’s second stage “experienced an off-nominal deorbit burn” and missed its landing target following yesterday’s flight, SpaceX posted.

The company is investigating the root cause. In the meantime, as Space notes, a California satellite launch that was scheduled for today has been postponed.

At 9:10AM ET, the agency will kick off a livestream of the start of the Crew-9 mission meant to bring stranded NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunni Williams back to Earth next year.

Out of the loop? Check our storystream on the Boeing Starliner issues that left them stuck on ISS. Liftoff is scheduled for 1:17PM ET today.

It’s taken just four years and more than 6,000 satellites placed into low Earth orbit — at a rate of about 24 per launch — with service now in over 100 countries.

As noted by TechCrunch:

The milestone would mean that SpaceX has gained a million new customers since the end of May alone. This outpaces the company’s already impressive rate of growth: Starlink started providing beta service of its product in October 2020; it hit 1 million subscribers in December 2022, 2 million subscribers in September 2023, and 3 million in May.

I’ve been a user since 2022 and am currently testing the Starlink Mini — ask me anything.

Two weeks ago it was United announcing fast free in-flight Wi-Fi for all. Who’s next? 

About as much water as a single-use bottle holds, the The Washington Post reports. The electricity it takes is about as much as 14 LED light bulbs might burn through in an hour.

These are rough estimates, but they come with helpful illustrations to show the environmental costs of operating data centers for new AI tools.

The Federal Aviation Administration can’t “keep pace with the commercial spaceflight industry” and “lacks the resources” to respond to mission changes, SpaceX said in a letter sent in response to $633,000 in federal fines for launching two missions with unapproved changes. SpaceX owner Elon Musk has promised to sue the agency, but it seems as if we’re still in the “strongly worded letter” phase of this particular feud.

I highly encourage everyone to read this breakdown from our former colleague Nicole Wetsman. It neatly summarizes the difference between wellness features like blood oxygen, versus detection features like EKG and sleep apnea.

As I wrote in my review, I understand FOMO in not having the feature. But you’re only supposed to use it to monitor your baseline — not much else.

More than 2,000 people’s unclaimed bodies in Dallas and Tarrant counties were given to the University of North Texas Health Science Center’s Willed Body Program. Some of the bodies were used to teach medical students; others were sold to for-profit companies.