NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick shared photos this week of Hurricane Beryl from space. In a post on X, Dominick said looking at the hurricane with the camera gave him "both an eerie feeling and a high level of weather nerd excitement."
The earliest category five storm on record for any year, Beryl has up-ended expectations for the hurricane season.
Historically warm Atlantic waters are set to fuel up to 12 hurricanes this season, it's predicted.
"Normally, early-season storm activity doesn't tell us much about what is going to happen the rest of the time," Phil Klotzbach, a hurricane expert and research scientist at Colorado State University, told CNN.
"But when storms are strong in the tropical Atlantic and eastern Caribbean, it tends to be a harbinger of a very busy season."
Peak hurricane activity is normally in August and September.
Flights to Sicily were disrupted when two powerful volcanoes became dangerously active, sending ash 4.5km into the air.
Travellers using Catania airport - one the main international gateways to the popular Italian island - faced major delays last Friday due to the latest eruption of Mount Etna, the highest volcano in Europe, reports the BBC.
Stromboli, on the nearby Aeolian island, also erupted and spewed lava into the Mediterranean Sea. Mount Etna is currently about 3,329m high, though this varies with summit eruptions.
Catania airport reopened on the weekend after air traffic disruption impacted about 15,000 passengers, local media reported.
This infrared image released by Maxar Technologies shows lava flowing from the Mount Etna volcano erupting, in Sicily, Italy, on Thursday, July 4, 2024. (Satellite image ©2024 Maxar Technologies. via AP)
Hurricane Beryl closed in on the southeastern Caribbean on Sunday (Monday AEDT) after strengthening into what experts called an "extremely dangerous" Category 4 storm.
Satellite images from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows Hurricane Beryl, lower centre right, as it strengthens over the Atlantic Ocean and churns toward the southeast Caribbean.
The storm was expected to make landfall in the Windward Islands on Monday. Hurricane warnings were in effect for Barbados, St. Lucia, Grenada, Tobago and St Vincent and the Grenadines.
Hurricane Beryl recorded maximum sustained winds of 215km/h.
It is a compact storm, with hurricane-force winds extending about 70km from its centre.
Beryl is expected to pass just south of Barbados and then head into the Caribbean Sea as a major hurricane on a path towards Jamaica.
Forecasters warned of a life-threatening storm surge of up to three metres in areas where Beryl makes landfall, with up to 15cm of rain for Barbados and nearby islands.
Warm waters are fuelling Beryl, with ocean heat content in the deep Atlantic the highest on record for this time of year, said Brian McNoldy, a tropical meteorology researcher at the University of Miami.
Lowry said the waters are now warmer than they would be at the peak of the hurricane season in September.
The magnitude of the landslide in a remote region of Papua New Guinea believed to have buried thousands of people alive has been revealed in new satellite images from Maxar Technologies.
A Papua New Guinea government official has told the United Nations that more than 2000 people are believed to have been buried alive by last Friday's disaster at Yambali village in Enga province.
The government figure is roughly triple the UN estimate of 670 killed by the landslide in the South Pacific island nation's mountainous interior.
Determining the scale of the disaster is difficult because of challenging conditions on the ground, including the village's remote location, a lack of telecommunications and tribal warfare throughout the province which means international relief workers and aid convoys require military escorts.
The Australian government announced it will send at least $2.5 million in humanitarian aid to help its closest neighbour.
The aid package includes technical experts and emergency relief supplies such as shelter, hygiene kits and specific support for women and children.
A US-built pier is in place to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza by sea, but no one will know if the new route will work until a steady stream of deliveries begins reaching starving Palestinians.
The trucks that will roll off the pier project will face intensified fighting, Hamas threats to target any foreign forces and uncertainty about whether the Israeli military will ensure that aid convoys have access and safety from attack by Israeli forces.
Even if the sea route performs as hoped, US, UN and aid officials caution, it will bring in a fraction of the aid that's needed to the embattled enclave.
US military officials hope to start with about 90 truckloads of aid a day through the sea route, growing quickly to about 150 trucks a day.
Samantha Power, head of the US Agency for International Development, and other aid officials have consistently said Gaza needs deliveries of more than 500 truckloads a day — the prewar average — to help a population struggling without adequate food or clean water during seven months of war between Israel and Hamas.
Israel has hindered deliveries of food, fuel and other supplies through land crossings since Hamas' deadly attack on Israel launched the conflict in October last year.
The restrictions on border crossings and fighting have brought on a growing humanitarian catastrophe for civilians.
International experts say all 2.3 million of Gaza's people are experiencing acute levels of food insecurity, 1.1 million of them at "catastrophic" levels.
Power and UN World Food Program Director Cindy McCain say north Gaza is in famine.
At that stage, saving the lives of children and others most affected requires steady treatment in clinical settings, making a cease-fire critical, USAID officials say.
At full operation, international officials have said, aid from the sea route is expected to reach a half-million people.
That's just over one-fifth of the population.
The US plan is for the UN to take charge of the aid once it's brought in.
The UN World Food Program will then turn it over to aid groups for delivery.
UN officials have expressed concern about preserving their neutrality despite the involvement in the sea route by the Israeli military — one of the combatants in the conflict — and say they are negotiating that.
There are still questions on how aid groups will safely operate in Gaza to distribute food to those who need it most, said Sonali Korde, assistant to the administrator for USAID's Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, which is helping with logistics.
US and international organisations including the US government's USAID and the Oxfam, Save the Children and International Rescue Committee nonprofits, say Israeli officials haven't meaningfully improved protections of aid workers since the military's April 1 attack that killed seven aid workers with the World Central Kitchen organisation.
Cambodia's Defence Ministry has insisted that the months-long presence of two Chinese warships in a strategically important naval base that is being newly expanded with funding from Beijing does not constitute a permanent deployment of the Chinese military in the country.
This satellite photo taken by Planet Labs PBC shows two Chinese corvettes docked at the Ream Naval Base on the Gulf of Thailand.
The United States and others have long worried that the new pier at the base, built with Chinese funding, could serve as a new outpost for the Chinese navy.
But Defence Ministry spokesperson General Chhum Socheat said the warships were due to take part in a joint Cambodian-Chinese military exercise later this month, and that they were also involved in training Cambodian sailors.
He said the ships were also "testing" the new pier, and that they were on show for Cambodia, which was considering purchasing similar warships for its own navy.
Controversy over Ream Naval Base initially arose in 2019 when The Wall Street Journal reported that an early draft of a reputed agreement seen by US officials would allow China 30-year use of the base, where it would be able to post military personnel, store weapons and berth warships.
The base sits adjacent to the South China Sea, where China has aggressively asserted its claim to virtually the entire strategic waterway. The US and its allies, including Australia, refuse to recognise Beijing's claims over the waterway and islands.
Israel's attack in the southern Gaza city of Rafah has expanded from airstrikes to ground operations, new satellite images obtained by CNN from Planet Labs show.
The images, which bear a striking resemblance to the early stages of Israel's ground invasion of Gaza last year, show the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) are active outside of the immediate border crossing area between Egypt and Gaza, which Israel took control of on Monday evening.
The images, which span from May 5 to 7, suggest some buildings have been bulldozed and show what appear to be mustering areas for IDF vehicles. Some of the IDF forces have penetrated more than a mile inside the Palestinian enclave from the Rafah crossing gate, the images also show.
These ground operations follow a series of airstrikes on Rafah that have completely destroyed several buildings in the past 24 hours, and killed at least four people, according to a local hospital. Satellite images suggest these strikes are continuing, with one picture showing smoke still rising from one location.
Satellite images have revealed the devastation caused by flooding in southern Brazil that has left at least 90 people dead and more than 130 others missing.
These images released by Maxar Technologies shows the before and after views of flooding along the Taquari River, n the state of Rio Grande do Sul.
The state capital, Porto Alegre, has been virtually cut off, with the airport and bus station closed and main roads blocked because of the floodwaters.
Football-loving Brazilians in the flood-stricken areas will have to wait before they can watch their favourite teams.
Top-ranked club Gremio, Internacional and Juventude, which are based in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, will only return to activities after the harms of major flooding are mitigated, the Brazilian football body said
These images released by Maxar Technologies shows the before and after views of flooding around Gremio Arena, in the city of Porto Alegre.
Porto Alegre's metropolitan region is one of Brazil's largest, home to about 4 million people. The city has been virtually cut off, with the airport and bus station closed and main roads blocked because of the floodwaters.
Flood damage has already forced more than 150,000 people from their homes. An additional 50,000 have taken refuge in schools, gymnasiums and other temporary shelters.
The most urgent need is drinking water. Five of the Porto Alegre's six water treatment facilities aren't working, and Porto Alegre Mayor Sebastião Melo on has decreed that water be used exclusively for "essential consumption."
Israel has reopened a border crossing to allow increased humanitarian aid into the hard-hit northern Gaza Strip for the first time since it was damaged on October 7, bowing to intense United States pressure to increase aid deliveries.
Satellite imagery released by MAXAR Technologies showed aid trucks parked at the Erez-Gaza crossing point.
It was reopened as international aid organisations reported a widespread humanitarian disaster in Gaza, warning that hundreds of thousands of people face the risk of famine in the besieged territory's north.
Meanwhile, the US and allies are scrambling to pull together a complex system that will move tonnes of humanitarian aid into Gaza by sea.
This satellite image shows the US Navy logistical ship Roy P. Benavidez and floating dock sections during the construction of the US military's floating dock that is being assembled off the Gaza coast.
Nearly two months after US President Joe Biden gave the order, American troops are assembling a large floating platform several kilometres off the Gaza coast that will be the launching pad for deliveries.
US officials are hopeful the temporary dock can be up and running this month, with the aim of two million meals a day to Gaza.
Indonesia's Mount Ruang volcano has erupted for a second time in two weeks, spewing ash almost two kilometres into the sky, closing an airport and peppering nearby villages with debris.
This photo shows a part of a village on Tagulandang island covered by ash.
Ash, grit and rock fell from the sky in towns and cities across the region, including Manado, a city with more than 430,000 people where motorists had to switch on their headlights during daytime.
Yulius Ramopolii, the head of Mount Ruang monitoring post, said the eruption blocked out the sun and peppered several villages with falling debris.
"The vibrations were intense and knocked out power, and volcanic earthquakes shook the glass windows and everything around us," he said.