Two NASA satellites rocketed into orbit from California aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket Wednesday, commencing a $170 million mission to study a phenomenon of space physics that has eluded researchers since the dawn of the Space Age.

The twin spacecraft are part of the NASA-funded TRACERS mission, which will spend at least a year measuring plasma conditions in narrow regions of Earth's magnetic field known as polar cusps. As the name suggests, these regions are located over the poles. They play an important but poorly understood role in creating colorful auroras as plasma streaming out from the Sun interacts with the magnetic field surrounding Earth.

The same process drives geomagnetic storms capable of disrupting GPS navigation, radio communications, electrical grids, and satellite operations. These outbursts are usually triggered by solar flares or coronal mass ejections that send blobs of plasma out into the Solar System. If one of these flows happens to be aimed at Earth, we are treated with auroras but vulnerable to the storm's harmful effects.

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• Torrential rain and flash floods hit parts of central Texas early Friday morning.
• Officials said that at least 78 people have died, but that they expect that number to rise.
• 10 children and a counselor remain missing from Camp Mystic, a local summer camp.

At least 78 people have died after heavy rainfall caused flash flooding in parts of central Texas on Friday.

During a press conference on Sunday, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said 68 people are confirmed dead, including 40 adults and 28 children. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said another 10 people were killed in the broader central Texas.

Officials said 10 children and one counselor from Camp Mystic, a Christian girls' camp along the Guadalupe River, remained unaccounted for. In areas affected by the flooding across the state, there are still 41 known missing people.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said the Guadalupe River rose 26 feet in 45 minutes on Friday as torrential rain battered the region. The National Weather Service said the river reached the second-highest height on record.

The agency on Sunday extended a flood watch for parts of central Texas through 7 p.m. local time.

Here are some images showing the impact of the flooding and ongoing search and rescue efforts.

The Trump administration's steep staff cuts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) triggered shutdowns of several climate-related programs Thursday.

Perhaps most notably, the NOAA announced it would be shuttering the "billion-dollar weather and climate disasters" database for vague reasons. Since 1980, the database made it possible to track the growing costs of the nation's most devastating weather events, critically pooling various sources of private data that have long been less accessible to the public.

In that time, 403 weather and climate disasters in the US triggered more than $2.945 trillion in costs, and NOAA notes that's a conservative estimate. Considering that CNN noted the average number of disasters in the past five years jumped from nine annually to 24, shutting down the database could leave communities in the dark on costs of emerging threats. All the NOAA can likely say is to continue looking at the historic data to keep up with trends.

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