TYB
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
September 16, 2026
Webb's View of M64
Sometimes where Hubble finds darkness, Webb sees light. An example is today’s composite images of Messier 64 (M64), a nearby spiral galaxy of many names. The dark band of dust partially blocking its bright core earned it the moniker “the Black Eye Galaxy.” Webb’s Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI) sees that dust, shown in red, as it absorbs and re-emits light from surrounding newborn stars. These young stars are embedded in pink star-forming regions in the secondary Hubble-only image. M64’s inner and outer gas regions counter-rotate, creating regions of increased star formation where the two gas “currents” meet and compress. A merger between M64 and a smaller galaxy was likely the cause of the opposing motion of the outer gas. Spiral galaxies were once thought to have peaceful histories. M64 was key evidence that spiral galaxies, including the Milky Way, can and do experience mergers. Webb’s view of M64 will tell astronomers about the structure, motion, and composition of the galaxy’s dust and add context to the galaxy’s merger history and evolution.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NEiVlpHG2U
Record Ozone Hole, Universe Physics in Question | S0 News and frens
Sep.16.2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50dyqTmsl6E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hcu64oj3pAY (CCTV Video News Agency: China's AI Supercluster Delivers High-resolution Weather Forecasting)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHtCvtIJUqA (thornews: Double Red Bean Alert! Missouri & Arizona floods possible! Lots of Near Earth Asteriods 4 September?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dvmh9-nVyfU (On the Pulse with Silki: MEXICO FLOODING TURNS VIOLENT — Ecatepec Overwhelmed as Torrents Tear Through the City)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ai1id1pu-kI (Global Crisis: Why China’s Historic Flooding and Indonesia’s Wildfires Will Inevitably Affect Us All)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgp3nq3k0PY (Stefan Burns: Global Earthquake Activity Just Vanished, and That's Not Good…)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uggqHEKSBrQ (EarthMaster: Whats going on at Kīlauea Volcano? Maximum Pressurization without an eruption. Earthquake update)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5NAA-ZTe-8 (MrMBB333: UNDERWATER VOLCANO ACTION BY MID TO LATE 2026!)
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solar
https://starlust.org/aurora-alert-northern-lights-could-be-visible-wednesday-night-in-montana-alaska-and-more-u-s-states/
https://phys.org/news/2026-09-minute-delay-solar-storm-disrupted.html
https://www.tcd.ie/news_events/articles/2026/schrader-deep-space-weather/
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wildfires
https://nypost.com/2026/09/16/us-news/video-shows-teen-shooting-fireworks-blamed-for-sparking-deadly-washington-wildfire/
https://www.actionnewsnow.com/news/covering-california/governor-gavin-newsom-signs-wildfire-recovery-legislation-package/article_36c4e245-5059-4385-9fae-321a6f6d1481.html
https://www.yourcentralvalley.com/news/local-news/yosemite-dome-fire-ignites/
https://www.kark.com/news/local-news/national-guard-forestry-division-share-update-on-calhoun-county-wildfire/
https://www.koco.com/article/oklahoma-fires-wildfires-burn-ban/73757856
https://www.thestar.com.my/aseanplus/aseanplus-news/2026/09/16/indonesias-wildfires-may-last-until-early-november-says-minister
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storms and floods
https://weather.com/2026/09/16/forecast/regional/flood-threat-kansas-city-chicago-midwest-minneapolis
https://blog.wvlegislature.gov/headline/2026/09/16/interim-report-joint-committee-on-flooding-6/
https://www.azfamily.com/2026/09/16/flood-watch-effect-heavy-rain-still-likely-across-arizona/
https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/local-nevada/body-recovered-from-colorado-river-after-flash-flooding-in-grand-canyon-3886741/
https://www.koat.com/article/flood-watch-in-effect-for-most-of-western-new-mexico-as-monsoon-storm-chances-spike/73757556
https://thelansingjournal.org/2026/09/15/gov-pritzker-requests-fema-disaster-assistance-for-recent-severe-weather-across-illinois/
https://news.ssbcrack.com/ground-stop-in-effect-for-ohare-as-severe-weather-threatens-chicago-area/
https://www.25newsnow.com/2026/09/16/severe-storm-knocks-out-power-hundreds-central-illinois/
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hurricanes and frens
https://www.weather.gov/news/260915-great-miami-hurricane
https://www.sciencealert.com/eerily-quiet-hurricane-activity-in-the-atlantic-ocean-has-just-passed-an-ominous-milestone
https://www.wjhg.com/2026/09/16/us-attorneys-office-fbi-caution-against-hurricane-recovery-scams/
https://www.army.mil/article/295374/usace_supplied_temporary_flood_barriers_provide_high_quality_protection_during_glacial_lake_outburst_flood_in_alaska
https://www.foxweather.com/weather-news/rare-tropical-disturbance-gulf-of-california-southwest-flood-threat
https://weather.com/2026/09/16/storms/hurricane/new-area-to-watch-atlantic-tropical-development
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/environment/london-flooding-risk-el-nino-climate-resilience-b1297192.html
https://www.koreajoongangdaily.com/korea/typhoon-dujuan-forecast-to-intensify-near-japan-not-directly-toward-korea/12878393
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earthquakes
https://watchers.news/epicenter/deep-structures-beneath-central-america-match-patterns-of-major-earthquakes-and-volcanism/
https://www.democrata.es/en/andalusia/a-magnitude-3-1-earthquake-shakes-granada-these-are-the-municipalities-where-it-has-been-felt/
https://mynorthwest.com/local/wa-earthquake-coast-2/4276257
https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/earthquakes/quake-info/23367118/mag4quake-Sep-16-2026-Nevada.html
https://www.foxweather.com/extreme-weather/two-earthquakes-iceland-volcano-glacier
https://icelandmonitor.mbl.is/news/news/2026/09/16/earthquake_swarm_on_the_reykjanes_ridge/
https://www.zoomnews.in/en/news-detail/nepal-earthquake-two-tremors-of-45-and-42-magnitude-hit-mugu-district.html
https://breakingthenews.net/Article/5.0-magnitude-earthquake-hits-Japan's-east-coast/67118345
https://breakingthenews.net/Article/5.0-magnitude-earthquake-shakes-Philippines/67116736
https://www.fananews.com/language/en/5-3-magnitude-earthquake-strikes-southern-guatemala/
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volcanoes
https://www.usgs.gov/observatories/hvo/news/photo-video-chronology-new-fissures-halemaumau-kilauea-summit
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dailys
https://schumannresonance.today/
https://www.weather.gov/
https://www.nifc.gov/fire-information/nfn
https://www.americanforests.org/wildfire-map/
https://www.tornadohq.com/
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/
https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/
https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/earthquakes-volcanoes/news/355764/Volcano-earthquake-report-2026-09-16.html
https://www.spaceweather.gov/
https://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=16&month=09&year=2026
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International Meteor Organization says cyberattack dealt ‘critical blow’ to website
September 16th, 2026
A cyberattack has shut down the website of the premier international organization responsible for tracking meteors.
The International Meteor Organization (IMO) has continued tracking asteroids and meteor through its Facebook page, but its website now carries a static page notifying visitors of the cyberattack.
“We recently suffered a cyberattack that dealt a critical blow to aging infrastructure, taking much of our site offline,” the organization said.
“We expect several weeks of partial downtime as we transition to new infrastructure and services. We will bring features back as they become available.”
The IMO said it prioritized restoring its fireball reporting system, which is now available to users for submissions.
The nongovernmental organization did not respond to requests for comment. It was founded in 1988 as a way to unite amateur and professional meteor observers and scientists.
The Belgium-based organization is scheduled to hold its annual international conference next week in France.
The IMO has been instrumental in creating global standards for meteor observations and for creating a database of meteor and fireball reports that include photos, videos and telescopic data.
No hacking group has taken credit for the attack as of Wednesday afternoon.
Hackers have repeatedly targeted organizations doing research into space and U.S. agencies previously warned of cyberattacks on the space industry due to its increasing importance to the global economy.
In 2023, hackers went after the National Science Foundation’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory in Hawai'i and the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) observatory in Chile.
The American Meteorological Society was also hit with ransomware in 2023.
https://therecord.media/international-meteor-organization-cyberattack
https://www.imo.net/
other space objects
https://hoodline.com/2026/09/fireball-streaks-over-kansas-city-early-tuesday-lights-up-lee-s-summit-sky/
https://earthsky.org/space/rings-of-chariklo-centaur-solar-system/
https://10best.usatoday.com/lifestyle/brilliant-venus-celestial-event-september-2026/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_Gauu6ET-w (Dobsonian Power: Live Pluto with telescope - what are they hiding?)
NASA Field-Tests AI Fleet Capability for Science, Exploration
September 15, 2026 4:43PM
NASA scientists and industry partners recently field-tested an artificial intelligence application that could make future solar system exploration missions more efficient, return more science data, and allow for faster scientific discoveries.
This summer at the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute in Blacksburg, Virginia, a fleet of three robots worked together, and researchers assessed the fleet’s ability to act like an independent science team.
To begin each test, a drone was assigned to choose an area of interest based on initial science goals provided by human experts. Then, the fleet’s programming weighed risks against potential science payoffs and calculated which robotic team member was best suited to investigate.
As the fleet carried out its plan, it continually checked for environmental hazards, reassessed its strategy to adapt to new information, and reported back to its human managers, NASA’s Adaptive Sensing Technology for Responsive Autonomy (ASTRA) team.
The project’s ultimate goal is to provide a trustworthy extension of the human science team in situations where humans are too far away to give real-time instructions, like on uncrewed missions to the outer planets of our solar system, or where the risk to human explorers is unacceptably high, like in areas of the Moon and Mars that are difficult for astronauts to explore.
One of the questions the field test was designed to answer: Once the fleet has started working on a science objective, will it change tasks autonomously based on new information?
In the testing, the fleet showed it could focus on its original objectives and follow up on new possibilities. When the lead drone found an additional area of interest in the course of its work, it didn’t abandon its current task, but it did pause to process the opportunity and pull in another robotic asset to investigate the new question.
Crucially, the fleet’s decision-making programs handled both objective and subjective information. What robotic assets are available? How far away are they, and how fast can each one move?
How much does the science team want the knowledge that can be gained by mapping this area or by taking a sample of that material? Would the humans want to learn from a newly spotted point of interest more than they’d want the fleet to focus on its original task?
How risky is each job for the robot attempting it, and is the danger acceptable to the mission planners?
“We want to find a way for missions to do things that they could never do before because they didn’t have a decision-maker on board that can weigh all these criteria at the same time,” says Bethany Theiling, ASTRA principal investigator and field lead, of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
This ability to consider subjective criteria alongside simple facts, then deliver decisions that satisfy the people behind the project, is what the ASTRA team is working to develop.
The mission team will consider the robotic fleet to be successful if it can correctly act without direct instructions based on its physical capabilities and on the team’s priorities and risk assessments.
Theiling led the testing campaign in collaboration with Noblis, Aurora Engineering, and the University of Tulsa.
https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/planetary-expeditions/2026/09/15/nasa-field-tests-ai-fleet-capability-for-science-exploration/
moar
https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/quesst/2026/09/15/nasas-new-x-59-test-pilot-gets-behind-controls-for-ground-test/
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-astronaut-reid-wiseman-to-join-nfl-fans-in-baltimore/
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/artemis-iii-crew-visits-nasa-kennedys-vehicle-assembly-building/
https://www.nasa.gov/general/nasa-ames-stars-of-the-month-september-2026/