Authorities are preparing for flooding and debris flows after recent wildfires have stripped vegetation from hillsides

California is bracing for a powerful atmospheric river storm that is expected to drench large swaths of the state with rain and bring several feet of snow to the mountains.

Much of northern California was under a winter storm warning because of the gusty winds and heavy snow in the forecast that the National Weather Service (NWS) said would lead to “difficult to impossible travel conditions”.

The $488m Spherex mission aims to explain how galaxies evolved over billions of years

Nasa’s newest space telescope rocketed into orbit on Tuesday to map the entire sky like never before – a sweeping look at hundreds of millions of galaxies and their shared cosmic glow since the beginning of time.

SpaceX launched the Spherex observatory from California, putting it on course to fly over Earth’s poles. Tagging along were four suitcase-size satellites to study the sun. Spherex popped off the rocket’s upper stage first, drifting into the blackness of space with a blue Earth in the background.