• A major brush fire is making its way through the Pacific Palisades and looks set to get stronger.
• The Palisades Fire had burned over 2,921 acres at 0% containment as of 5:16 a.m. local time Wednesday.
• One climate scientist said it was the worst wildfire in Southern California since 2011.

A major fire is blazing across thousands of acres of an affluent neighborhood of Los Angeles into the early hours of Wednesday, threatening tens of thousands of homes and forcing people to flee on foot.

The Palisades Fire broke out around 10:30 a.m. Pacific Time on Tuesday, and quickly spread.

It had burned over 2,921 acres at 0% containment as of 5.16 a.m. local time Wednesday, according to California's Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA, said in a BlueSky post on Tuesday that it's the worst wildfire in Southern California since 2011.

The National Weather Service said that "extreme" fire weather conditions were set to continue until mid-afternoon Wednesday.

The worst of the fire is expected to occur between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. local time on Wednesday, fire ecologist Chad Hanson told the BBC.

"It's going to be quite a rough night," he added.

At least 30,000 residents have been ordered to evacuate, while residents not under an evacuation order in the coastal city of Malibu — home to many celebrities — were told by city officials to prepare to leave.

More than 300,000 Californians were out of power as of 4 a.m. local time, according to a tracking site.

Electricity provider Southern California Edison said that it had cut power to almost 26,000 homes and was considering cuts to a further 133,000 "due to heightened wildfire risk" in Los Angeles County.

The cause of the fire is still being investigated.

Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin M. Crowley said more than 25,700 people were threatened by the fire, as well as around 10,367 homes and 13,208 structures.

No injuries or deaths were reported as of Tuesday afternoon.

The median home price in Pacific Palisades, an affluent area, was $3.2 million as of November, according to Redfin.

Crowley said the fire was being fueled by strong winds and the surrounding topography, which were "making it extremely challenging" for firefighters on the scene.

Mandatory evacuation orders were issued for the area all the way down to the Pacific Ocean.

Evacuation orders and warnings have also been issued for two further fires. The Hurst fire, in the north of the region, covered 1,000 acres, and the Eaton fire, in the north-east, covered 500 acres, both as of 2.30 a.m. local time.

California's Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency on Tuesday.

"There's no fire season, it's fire year," Newsom said at a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, noting other fires California has faced in recent months, including the Franklin and Mountain fires. "It's year-round."

In a post on X on Wednesday, Newsom said that 1,400 firefighters were involved, with more on their way.

During the press conference, Newsom encouraged residents to heed the evacuation orders. He also announced Tuesday that the state had secured federal assistance from FEMA to support the fire response. 

Live footage on ABC7 showed houses burning Tuesday afternoon.

The fire could spread further and grow stronger as extreme winds in the area are forecast to peak in the evening through Wednesday morning.

As winds pick up, humidity is set to decrease.

"Just about everything is going to get worse before it gets better," Swain, the UCLA scientist, said in a video update Tuesday afternoon.

Evacuees abandoned cars as traffic stalled

Palisades Drive, the major road out of the neighborhood, was packed with slow-moving lines of cars shortly after noon Tuesday, as people evacuated beneath a smoky haze and bright-orange flames licked the hillside in the distance, shown live on ABC7.

The state agency CalFire reported that the fire was on both sides of Palisades Drive.

ABC7 spoke to multiple people who were evacuating on foot, including some who had abandoned their cars on the road.

One resident told the news channel that "a whole bunch of neighbors" were stuck in their homes on Palisades Drive.

"This is apocalyptic. We've had small fires, nothing like this," they added.

Jonathan Vigliotti, a CBS News correspondent who was on the ground as a neighborhood went up in flames, said on X that there was "mass panic in the streets."

Historic windstorm is 'worst possible scenario'

Officials have not yet determined how the fire started, but it erupted during a high-risk major windstorm that created extreme fire conditions in the area.

Warm, dry Santa Ana winds from the deserts of Nevada and Utah are expected to bring gusts up to 100 mph to Southern California through Wednesday morning.

The National Weather Service called the windstorm "life-threatening and destructive" and warned that these could be the strongest north winds in 14 years.

With low humidity and dry vegetation in the region, the winds created a perfect storm for fire ignition.

The NWS urged residents to be ready to evacuate, as such winds can rapidly spread any fire that breaks out.

"This is pretty much the worst possible scenario for a firefight," David Ortiz of the LAFD told local news station KTLA.

• A 65-year-old patient has died of bird flu, Louisiana officials reported on Monday.
• The patient had underlying conditions and was likely infected by exposure to birds.
• This is the first death linked to the current outbreak of H5N1, avian influenza.

Bird flu has claimed its first human death in the US.

A Louisiana patient died from a severe case of the H5N1 avian influenza, state health officials reported on Monday.

The patient, who was over 65 and had underlying conditions, is the only human case of H5N1 in Louisiana.

There is still no sign that the H5N1 virus can spread between people. The Louisiana patient contracted the virus after exposure to wild birds and a non-commercial backyard flock, officials reported.

The bird flu's proliferation through bird and animal populations worldwide has led to many human spillover cases over the years. There have been 939 cases of human H5N1 infections worldwide as of November 2024, according to the World Health Organization. Of those, 464 were fatal.

"I think it's pretty clear that we will continue to see severe disease," Richard Webby, a virologist at St. Jude and director of the WHO animal and bird flu center, told Business Insider. "I guess the real question is are we going to see more? I don't know the answer to that one."

A new variant of H5N1 with concerning mutations

The Louisiana patient, who was hospitalized in late 2024, carried a new version of bird flu, which is unlike the bird flu that has been spreading in cattle across the US, the CDC reported. A teenager in Canada, who was hospitalized with severe bird flu in November, also carried that new version, which is called the D1.1 genotype.

Public-health experts are concerned that H5N1 could develop mutations that allow it to adapt better to infecting mammals. That could set the virus on a path to human-to-human transmission.

Webby said samples of the D1.1 genotype virus "did look like they were starting to develop some of those mutations" after infecting the Louisiana and Canada patients.

Fortunately, the mutated virus did not appear to pass from those two patients to other people.

"To be honest, the last month, six weeks, have made me a little more uneasy about the situation," Webby said.

The Louisiana Department of Health said in its report that the public health risk for the general public remains low, but "people who work with birds, poultry or cows, or have recreational exposure to them, are at higher risk."

Still, Webby said the Louisiana case shows that "the risk of catching this virus is not just for those that are in a milking parlor in California," who are some of the most at-risk due to the widespread outbreak in the state's cattle.

Rather, he said, "anywhere where there's birds, there is a risk to individuals who are in contact with those birds."

• Parts of the US are being battered by Winter Storm Blair, with states of emergency declared.
• The frigid conditions are impacting travel, with icy Midwest roads and flights and trains canceled.
• Snow hit Washington, DC, on Monday as the area prepares for the Trump administration transition.

Ice-storm warnings and unpleasantly cold conditions are expected to continue in much of the northern US.

The Arctic outbreak, dubbed Winter Storm Blair by the Weather Channel, has disrupted travel and resulted in at least five deaths.

The storm is bringing heavy snow to areas in the mid-Atlantic region that haven't seen such weather in a decade, the National Weather Service warned.

Heavy snowfall has occurred in places such as Kansas City, Missouri, where local media reported 10 inches of snow on Sunday night, and Louisville, Kentucky, which saw its largest single-day snowfall in about 25 years.

On Tuesday, snow is expected to dwindle in most of the areas blanketed by it as the storm moves south.

Two people have died in a weather-related crash in Wichita, Kansas, a Missouri public works employee was fatally injured during snow removal operations, and a person in Houston, Texas, died due to cold weather, NBC reported on Monday afternoon.

As of 3 a.m. ET Tuesday, about 207,063 utility customers were without power across Kentucky, Indiana, West Virginia, Virginia, Illinois, and Missouri, according to PowerOutage.us, which tracks power outages across the US. That was down from about 254,000 customers on Monday afternoon.

Travel delays and cancellations

More than 2,900 flights were canceled and over 9,300 flights within, into, or out of the US were delayed on Monday, according to FlightAware.

More than half of Monday flights were canceled at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, while the nearby Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport saw 125 flights, or 43% of those scheduled Monday, canceled.

Chicago O'Hare and Dallas-Fort Worth International Airports are leading the country in delays.

Amtrak, the US national rail operator, also announced a series of cancellations in the Northeast and the Midwest on Monday.

The numbers of impacted flights are expected to continue to rise.

Airlines including American, Delta, Southwest, and United have said they're waiving change fees for flights impacted by the storm.

Meanwhile, freezing temperatures led to icy roads and dangerous driving conditions in the Midwest on Sunday. The Missouri State Highway Patrol reported 436 crashes and 1,788 stranded motorists by 3 p.m. on Monday.

Heavy snow and cold to continue

The NWS Weather Prediction Center said Monday that the adverse weather would move toward the mid-Atlantic throughout the day, bringing up to 12 inches of snow and dangerously cold temperatures.

Snow — possibly mixed with sleet and freezing rain — reached about 8 inches in Washington, DC, where preparations are underway for Donald Trump's incoming administration.

Additional cold weather warnings have also been issued in Baltimore, Cincinnati, Louisville, and St. Louis, with officials warning to limit travel in the impacted areas, The Weather Channel reported.

The Baltimore-Washington National Weather Service said on Monday afternoon that heavy snow would continue through 11 p.m., dropping up to 3 more inches before the snow system exits the area.

On Monday night, it predicted light snow to continue into the night with an extra 1 to 2 inches near urban areas and in the mountains, and low temperatures in the single digits in the west to upper teens elsewhere.

In an X post in the early hours of Tuesday, the mayor of Washington, DC, Muriel Bowser, said more than 200 snow plows would work through the night, and that school would be closed Tuesday.

Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and Arkansas have declared states of emergency, with Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey declaring a state of emergency for several counties.

In all, about half the US population is expected to experience freezing temperatures over the next week, Axios reported.

• Kenyan officials are investigating who owns a mysterious metallic object that fell from the sky.
• The giant ring fell from space, crash-landing into Mukuku Village in Kenya on Wednesday.
• No one was hurt, but space debris poses a serious threat to life on Earth and in space.

On Wednesday, Mukuku Village in Kenya got an unexpected visitor from space.

At about 3 p.m. local time, a large metallic ring weighing about 1,100 pounds and measuring 8 feet in diameter crash-landed in the village, the Kenya Space Agency said in a statement.

The agency said no one was injured, and that the space debris poses no immediate risk.

Maj. Alois Were, an officer with the Kenya Space Agency, told Citizen TV, a Kenyan news station, that the ring-like object is "possibly from a rocket separation stage."

However, it's unclear whose rocket the ring might belong to. Officials said they had collected pieces from the impact site for further analysis to determine its origins.

Were said that once they determine the owner, the space agency will use the "existing legal mechanisms under international law" to hold the person or organization accountable.

Space debris is usually designed to either burn up in Earth's atmosphere before reaching the ground or land in unpopulated areas, like the ocean. This doesn't always happen, though.

For example, in May 2024, a piece of SpaceX debris as large as a car hood crash-landed on a trail at a mountaintop resort just outside Asheville, North Carolina.

If it had landed on a person hiking the trail that day, it would have certainly killed them, Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard and Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and leading space debris expert, told Business Insider in July.

To date, no one has died from space debris raining from the skies. Perhaps the closest call was in March, when a two-pound piece of debris slightly smaller than a soda can fell from the International Space Station, crashing through a family's roof in Florida. The family is suing NASA over the incident.

Ever since humans started launching objects into space in the late 1950s, there has been a risk that some might fall back to Earth in an unexpected place. As humans launch more objects into space, however, that risk is growing.

Between 2008 and 2017, global space organizations launched an average of 82 orbital rockets a year. That number jumped to an average of about 130 launches a year between 2018 and 2022, according to the US International Trade Commission. In 2024, there were about 250 launches — a new record.

This poses risks on Earth and adds to a long-existing problem in space: space clutter and collisions. There's a lot of trash in space, from dead satellites and astronaut gloves to tiny bits no larger than a grape.

These millions of bits of debris are racing around our planet faster than a bullet. It's gotten so bad that about 1,000 warnings of possible impending collisions are issued daily to satellite operators, physicist Thomas Berger said in a press briefing at December's annual American Geophysical Union meeting.

Berger said a major collision could generate "an unstoppable chain reaction of further collisions, ultimately resulting in a completely filled-up space environment."

If that happens, it could make space unusable.

• Luxury beachfront high-rises on the coast of Miami's barrier islands are sinking, a new study found.
• Subsidence and rising seas are a global problem, affecting up to $109 billion of US coastal property by 2050.
• Satellites could spot buildings that are sinking or tilting for early intervention.

Coastal properties worldwide are sinking, including some of Miami's pricey waterfront high-rises.

In a study published in the journal Earth and Space Science in December, researchers found that 35 buildings along the coasts of Miami's barrier islands have sunk into the ground by 2 to 8 centimeters between 2016 and 2023.

This sinking phenomenon, called subsidence, is happening "almost everywhere that we look," said Manoochehr Shirzaei, a geophysicist at Virginia Tech who was not involved in the Miami-area study.

That sinking can lead to expensive — and sometimes deadly — damage and flooding in some of the most populated places on Earth. It doesn't have to, though.

The new Miami study shows how satellites can help save buildings and infrastructure before the sinking contributes to catastrophic failure.

Coastal cities' sinking problem

Cities all over the world weigh so much and draw so much groundwater from beneath them that they're sinking into the ground. It's been documented on every continent.

Sinking coastal cities are extra vulnerable because the seas are rising to meet them, doubling the flood risk.

"One centimeter of sea level rise and one centimeter of subsidence each have the same effects" on flooding hazards, the lead authors of the new Miami study, Farzaneh Aziz Zanjani and Falk Amelung, told BI in an email.

Many of the most afflicted coastal cities are in eastern and southern Asia, but major hubs in Europe, Africa, and Australia are also sinking rapidly.

In the US, Shirzaei's research group found that huge swaths of the East Coast — including New York and Baltimore — are sinking by at least 2 millimeters each year.

In a follow-up study, Shirzaei's research group found Gulf Coast cities sinking even more.

Expensive flood risks and structural damage

Despite its prevalence, subsidence isn't usually factored into future flooding estimates.

By combining it with sea-level rise projections, Shirzaei's group estimated that up to 518,000 more Americans will be exposed to high tide flooding by 2050 in up to 288,000 more properties, amounting to $109 billion in property value.

It's not just flooding, though. Subsidence can also compromise a building's structural integrity.

"The situation becomes concerning when different parts of the building move at varying rates," Aziz Zanjani and Amelung said.

"This can cause structural damage, such as cracks or distortions, which could compromise the building's safety over time," they added.

Knowing if and how buildings are sinking could help prevent future damage. That's where the Miami researchers' study comes in.

Satellites can spy hot spots before they sink too far

After the 2021 collapse of the Champlain South Condominium Tower in Surfside, Florida, which killed 98 people, Miami researchers began to wonder if the ground beneath that building was part of the problem.

When they assessed satellite data, they didn't find any indication of subsidence before the incident, which surprised them because so much construction was happening in the area.

They'd found that the subsidence of other buildings was associated with nearby construction. The researchers think the difference is sand.

The limestone underground might be interspersed with sandy layers in the barrier islands. Vibrations from construction could cause the sand grains to shift and give way under the buildings' weight.

Though there are likely other factors at play, having such a specific link to the subsidence of specific structures can be helpful. That's the first step in solving a building's sinking problem.

"It would be incredibly helpful if this type of information were more readily available to researchers," Aziz Zanjani and Amelung said.

The Miami researchers are seeking more funding to study Miami's sediments and investigate uneven subsidence, where different parts of a building sink at different rates.

Shirzaei said satellite remote-sensing could be a diagnostic tool to scan specific regions — such as Miami's barrier islands — for buildings tilting on uneven land subsidence. Then, investigators can target at-risk spots and, if necessary, suggest structural reinforcements.

After all, the Miami scientists wrote in their paper, "There are no indications that subsidence will come to a stop."

• Astronauts take hundreds of stunning photos from the International Space Station.
• This year's best snapshots reveal both Earth and space in glorious detail.
• Check out astronauts' views of eclipses, northern lights, storms, and Earth's grandest landscapes.

Every year, the International Space Station produces some of the world's best photography.

Astronauts tend to be technically skilled with a camera, yes. Many of them are engineers, after all.

Their real photography advantage, though, is the glorious view from space as they circle our planet every 90 minutes.

From blue comets and pink northern lights to snowy volcanos and winding rivers, the view 250 miles above Earth does not disappoint.

Here are the best photos of 2024 from the space station.

You simply can't beat the views from the International Space Station.

So astronauts take hundreds of photos each year.

"How would you not want to take pictures and try and share that with the rest of humanity?" NASA astronaut Matt Dominick told ABC News Radio in August.

This year brought a special treat: the bold, bright Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, or Comet A3.

Of course, astronauts also get front-row seats to the northern lights, aka the aurora borealis.

In April, they watched the shadow of the moon creep across the US during the total solar eclipse.

Earth's atmosphere offers other unique spectacles, such as colorful sunsets and sunrises.

This eerie sheen is noctilucent clouds — extremely rare ice-crystal formations much higher in the atmosphere than any other cloud.

Even these gorgeous photos don't do the real views justice, according to Dominick.

"I've spent a fair amount of time trying to capture what I can see with my eye. I've not been able to achieve it yet," he said.

Not all the views are fun or comforting. Astronauts can see wildfires clearly.

Every year they get a bird's-eye view of hurricanes, too.

Stretching hundreds of miles wide, major storms like Hurricanes Helene and Milton seem to swallow the world below.

Astronauts can even see lightning blaring through the clouds.

One thing they can't often see is borders — like in this spot where Libya, Sudan, and Egypt meet in the Sahara desert.

Astronauts have long described a profound shift in perspective when they first see Earth from above. It's called the "Overview Effect."

They talk about overwhelming feelings of awe, unity, and a sense of Earth's fragility.

The actor William Shatner described it after his 2021 spaceflight with Jeff Bezos: "There's the blue down there and the black up there. There is Mother Earth and comfort, and there is — is there death? I don't know."

"It really is difficult for me to imagine people on Earth not getting along together," NASA astronaut Suni Williams told reporters in September. "It just changes your perspective."

Williams and her crewmate, Butch Wilmore, have been stuck on the space station for months.

They were the first people to fly on Boeing's Starliner spaceship for a roughly week-long flight in July.

Starliner returned to Earth without them after engine issues made NASA officials concerned about its safety.

Now, Williams and Wilmore are scheduled to return to Earth aboard SpaceX's Crew Dragon spaceship in March.

They've taken the setback in stride. "This is my happy place. I love being up here in space," Williams said.

The space station's days are numbered, though. It will reach the end of its operational life in 2030.

NASA has asked SpaceX to design a vehicle to push the ISS out of orbit, to a fiery plunge into the Pacific Ocean.

The ISS will have a "big legacy," Dominick said: "Look what humanity can do when they come together and work together."

• Space junk has filled up so much of Earth's orbit that it's endangering satellites and astronauts.
• The company Kayhan Space issues roughly 1,000 space-collision warnings per day.
• Earth-orbit experts fear debris will cause an "unstoppable chain reaction" that cuts off launches.

So much junk is filling Earth's orbit that collision avoidance has become a busy business.

"We're talking about the dead satellites, the rocket bodies, the fairings, the wrenches, the gloves, and things like that that have been left up in orbit," physicist Thomas Berger said in a press briefing at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in Washington DC on December 11.

Along with those recognizable objects, there are millions of bits of debris in orbit traveling faster than a bullet.

All that stuff is building up and increasing the risk of explosive space collisions, which is dangerous for astronauts and satellites.

Earth's orbit is so crowded with junk now that roughly 1,000 warnings about possible impending collisions go out to satellite operators each day, Berger said.

For example, Araz Feyzi, a co-founder of the orbital data company Kayhan Space, told BI in an email that some of its customer satellites get up to 800 alerts per day from the US Space Force.

Siamak Hesar, the company's other co-founder, later wrote in a SpaceNews editorial that the company tracks "more than 60,000 alerts per week for a constellation of around 100 satellites."

Most of those warnings come from one neighborhood of Earth's orbit, around 550 kilometers (340 miles) in altitude, where SpaceX's Starlink satellites live.

"It's getting difficult for satellite operators to determine which of these warnings is important and which they have to pay attention to," said Berger, who is the executive director of the Space Weather Technology, Research and Education Center at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Because trackers can't perfectly predict objects' positions in space, these collision warnings are triggered when objects are expected to pass each other at a close distance. Only a small fraction of warnings actually end in a collision.

When space objects do collide, they eject high-speed debris in multiple directions, creating a new zone of hazardous junk in orbit.

"It could generate a chain reaction, an unstoppable chain reaction of further collisions, ultimately resulting in a completely filled-up space environment," Berger said.

In the worst-case scenario, orbit could become so crowded that there's no safe space for new rocket launches.

That's a situation experts call Kessler syndrome, and "that we hope to prevent," Berger said.

Close calls and near-misses

While rare, major collisions and explosions have happened a few times.

In 2009, an American satellite and Russian satellite crashed together, ending in nearly 2,000 bits of debris large enough to detect — at least 4 inches wide — with thousands more smaller bits.

In 2021, a Chinese satellite and a Russian rocket chunk collided, creating at least 37 pieces of debris large enough for ground systems to track.

And anti-satellite missile tests by Russia, China, and India have blown up dead spacecraft in orbit, sending thousands of chunks flying.

Each of these events created its own field of hazardous debris which still rockets around the planet today with potentially dire consequences.

For example, several times a year, astronauts on the International Space Station get debris alerts and prepare to evacuate if the station is struck. When this happens, spaceships docked to the station will burn their engines to push it out of the way.

Satellite operators often respond to warnings by moving their satellites out of the way. SpaceX told the FCC in July that its satellites had conducted nearly 50,000 collision-avoidance maneuvers in just the first half of the year, Space.com reported.

Unfortunately, not all satellites are maneuverable.

In March, NASA had to sit on its hands and watch as a long-dead Russian spacecraft careened toward the agency's TIMED satellite, which was designed in the 1990s and doesn't have the ability to move on command.

Luckily, the two spacecraft missed each other by 17 meters (56 feet) — not very far by space standards.

"That would've been a hypervelocity impact creating thousands of pieces of debris," Berger said.

Daniel Baker, who directs the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at UC Boulder, urged the US Congress to pass the ORBITS Act. The legislation would require federal agencies like NASA and the FCC to support technologies that can remove junk from orbit.

"I believe that we are watching the tragedy of the commons play out in low-Earth orbit right before our eyes," Baker said in the briefing.

"We have to get serious about this and recognize that unless we do something, we are in imminent danger of making a whole part of our Earth environment unusable," he added.

• SpaceX employees worked grueling hours and gritty conditions in the company's early days.
• Elon Musk offered workers SpaceX stock options to poach top talent and keep them motivated.
• One expert said that for stocks to work, companies have to give employees chances to cash in.

Working at SpaceX in the company's earliest days was intense, but it may pay off for some hires.

Tough working conditions might tank some businesses, but not SpaceX. On December 11, Bloomberg reported that the Elon Musk-founded company was valued at $350 billion, making it the most valuable private startup worldwide.

The value comes after SpaceX and some of its approved investors struck a deal to buy up to $1.25 billion of employees' shares, offering $185 a share. Therein lies a partial key to SpaceX's overwhelming success.

Like many tech startups, SpaceX offered its early employees stock options as a financial incentive to keep them invested in the company's success — even when they were exposed to Musk's strict standards, his bouts of shouting when things went wrong, and his near-impossible timelines, space journalist Eric Berger reported.

In his new book "Reentry," Berger shares current and former employees' accounts of working 36-hour days, sleeping under their desks, urinating in buckets, dodging rattlesnakes, and injuring themselves on the job.

Stock options are a toss-up. They don't always end up being valuable. SpaceX was proving its value early, though.

"Even as far back as 2010, you could see that that had real value if you stayed there," Berger told Business Insider.

How equity pushes employees

Offering stock options is a common strategy, especially for early-stage companies that don't have much cash for salaries, said Jorge Martin, head of the employee-equity plan provider North American branch of JP Morgan Workplace Solutions.

"When they are working these grinding hours, when they are traveling all over the world, when they're under high pressure," Martin said, "then all of that is worth it when you have an equity grant that can grow as the company grows and as the company succeeds."

Martin said he's occasionally seen startup employees become millionaires off their equity.

The promise of those stock options gave SpaceX a competitive edge in recruiting top engineering talent. In the scramble for new hires fresh out of college in the 2010s, SpaceX, Berger said, often competed with Blue Origin, a similarly ambitious rocket company founded by Jeff Bezos.

"They would poach people back and forth," Berger said.

Cashing in on company equity

Workers can turn shares into cash when a company gets sold or goes public — which SpaceX has not done — or when it does a "tender offer," allowing employees to sell their shares to other investors.

Blue Origin has a stock ownership program too, Berger said, but it's "considered virtually worthless because Bezos is probably never going to sell a significant chunk of the company. So those shares can never really be sold."

SpaceX, meanwhile, has given its employees multiple opportunities to cash in on their shares, including through the deal it struck this month.

Musk's Mars vision helped

SpaceX offered some of its early employees more than stock. Some truly believed in Musk's plans to build a human settlement on Mars.

Unlike a regimented job at NASA or a legacy aerospace corporation, a gig at SpaceX meant working hands-on with multiple ambitious rockets, spaceships, or engines — back to back or simultaneously.

"You're going to work super hard, but you're also going to get to work on cutting-edge stuff, stuff that's actually going to fly," Berger said. "After a few years there with that on your résumé, you can basically write your ticket anywhere in the industry you want to go."

For some employees, Berger found, the stock was icing on the cake.

SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment.

• Some scientists trying to create "mirror life" have stopped in their tracks.
• A mirror microorganism could end up being a major pathogen since our immune systems wouldn't notice it.
• Mirror-image biology inverts a fundamental property of life on Earth: which way molecules point.

Creating "mirror life" could be one of science's greatest breakthroughs, but some researchers who began the effort are now calling for it to stop.

No mirror-life microorganisms exist yet. However, 38 scientists warned in a paper published in the journal Science on December 12 that if someone created one and it escaped the lab, it could cause a catastrophic multi-species pandemic.

"We're basically giving instructions of how to make a perfect bioweapon," Kate Adamala, a co-author of the paper and a chemist who leads a synthetic biology lab at the University of Minnesota, told Business Insider.

As the risks became clear, Adamala ended her lab's efforts toward building a mirror cell. Her multi-year grant for that facet of their research expired and she decided not to apply for renewal, she said.

Now she's urging other scientists to do the same, along with the 37 other researchers.

"Although we were initially skeptical that mirror bacteria could pose major risks, we have become deeply concerned," they wrote in the paper.

What is mirror life?

Mirror biology takes a fundamental rule of life on Earth, called chirality, and flips it.

Chirality is the simple fact that molecules — like sugars and amino acids — point in one of two directions. They are either right-handed or left-handed.

For some reason, though, life will only use one chiral form of each molecule. DNA, for example, only uses right-handed sugars for its backbone. That's why it twists to the right.

In mirror biology, scientists aim to create living cells where all the chirality is flipped. Where natural life uses a right-handed peptide, to build proteins, mirror life would use the same peptide in its left-handed form.

Adamala's research was focused on making mirror peptides, which can help create longer-lasting pharmaceuticals.

A full mirror cell was the long-term goal of that research. Mirror cells could help prevent contamination in bioreactors that use bacteria for green chemical manufacturing because, in theory, they wouldn't interact with natural microorganisms.

"You could have this perfect bioreactor that can just sit there and you can stick your finger into it and you're not going to contaminate it," Adamala said. "That's also precisely the problem."

A mirror bacteria could bypass the natural checks and balances of life, like competing with other bacteria or battling our immune systems.

Immune systems would ignore mirror cells

Adamala said "the death sentence" for her mirror-cell research came when she spoke to immunologists. They explained that for humans, other animals, and plants, immune system activation depends on chirality.

Immune cells recognize pathogens' proteins, but they wouldn't detect the inverse versions of those proteins that mirror cells would use.

A mirror pathogen "doesn't interact with the host. It just uses it as a warm incubator with a lot of nutrients," Adamala said.

If a mirror bacteria escaped the lab, it could cause slow, persistent infections that can't be treated with antibiotics (because those, too, rely on chirality).

Because they wouldn't face any immune resistance, mirror bacteria wouldn't need to specialize in infecting corn, or goats, or birds.

"It would be a disease of anything that lives that can be infected," Adamala said.

In the worst-case scenario, a mirror bacteria would multiply endlessly, unfettered. It would take over its hosts and eventually kill them. It would destroy crops. It would have no predators. It would overwhelm entire ecosystems, swapping out portions of our natural world for a new mirror world.

A long way away

Ting Zhu, one of the leading researchers trying to make a mirror cell, told BI in an email that he supports being cautious but doesn't think "a complete mirror-image bacterium can be synthesized in the foreseeable future."

Zhu leads a mirror-image biology lab at Westlake University in China. He was not involved in the Science paper.

Adamala estimates that the world's first mirror bacteria is still about a decade away. She argues that's exactly why the research should stop now before it builds all the tools that someone could use to make that final leap.

"No one can do it on their own right now," Adamala said. "The technology is not mature enough, which means we're pretty well safeguarded against someone crazy enough to say, 'I'll just go do it.'"

In the meantime, Adamala and the other paper authors invited more research and scrutiny on the risks they've identified.

"If someone does prove us wrong, that would make me really happy," she said.

• A bird flu outbreak has ravaged the world's birds since 2020 and infected cattle earlier this year.
• California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency over the virus this week.
• Health officials also confirmed the first "severe" case of and hospitalization for the H5N1 virus.

The burgeoning global bird flu outbreak continued its flight path across the country this week, with two major developments that point to the virus's increasingly concerning spread.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency over the virus on Wednesday, citing a worrying number of infected herds throughout the state in recent months and a need for more resources.

Since the state first identified the H5N1 avian influenza virus in cattle in late August, California's agriculture department has confirmed 645 infected dairy herds.

Newsom's announcement, meanwhile, came just hours after health officials confirmed the first severe case of bird flu in Louisiana, saying a person was hospitalized with an infection after being exposed to sick birds in his backyard.

In recent months, infectious disease experts have grown more and more nervous about the possibility of a human pandemic linked to the virus, even as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has maintained that the public health risk for humans is low.

Here's where things stand.

Bird flu outbreak

The H5N1 virus first reemerged in Europe in 2020 and has since become widespread in birds around the world. The outbreak has killed tens of millions of birds and tens of thousands of sea lions and seals in recent years.

Birds carry the disease while migrating and can expose domestic poultry to the virus while never showing signs themselves, according to the CDC.

The virus jumped to cattle herds for the first time ever earlier this year in a major escalation. Then, in October, a pig in Oregon tested positive for the virus, an especially concerning case as swine can host both bird and human flu viruses.

There has been no known human-to-human transmission yet. Still, the growing pattern of mammal-to-mammal transmission has infectious disease experts on guard against the possibility that H5N1 could eventually become a human pandemic.

"If it keeps spreading in animals, then it is eventually going to cause problems for humans, either because we don't have food because they've got to start exterminating flocks, or because it starts to make a jump in humans," Dr. Jerome Adams, a former surgeon general and the director of health equity at Purdue University, told Business Insider in April.

"The more it replicates, the more chances it has to mutate," he added.

The ongoing multi-state dairy cattle outbreak, which is believed to have started in Texas, has infected 865 herds across 16 states, according to the CDC, and has led to a growing number of human cases among US dairy and poultry workers.

The CDC has thus far confirmed 61 reported human cases and seven probable cases across the US, though some scientists estimate that the real number of infections is higher.

More than half of the human cases are tied to interaction with sick cattle. The remaining infections have been traced to exposure to sick poultry or have an unknown origin, the CDC said.

State of emergency

California's Wednesday announcement will give state and local authorities increased resources to study and contain the outbreak, Newsom said.

"This proclamation is a targeted action to ensure government agencies have the resources and flexibility they need to respond quickly to this outbreak," the governor said in a statement.

Earlier this month, the Agriculture Department said it would start testing the nation's milk supply for traces of the virus, requiring dairy farmers to provide raw milk samples upon request. Up until then, cattle testing for potential infections had been almost entirely voluntary.

Dr. Monica Gandhi, a professor of medicine and associate chief of the Division of HIV, Infectious Diseases, and Global Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, said the declaration will likely give California a greater ability to surveil dairy farms for signs of the virus.

But declaring a state of emergency could be a double-edged sword.

Phrases "like 'state of emergency,' given that we've just been through a pandemic, can induce panic," Gandhi said.

And it's not time to panic yet, she said.

Gandhi praised the CDC's "very measured" messaging around the virus thus far and said health officials are closely monitoring the spread.

• Two astronauts have been stuck on the space station after their Boeing spaceship had engine issues.
• Now, their return is being delayed another month to give SpaceX time to process a new spaceship.
• NASA and SpaceX are using the new ship, instead of a refurbished one, to expand SpaceX's fleet.

Two astronauts have been stuck on the International Space Station for months because of issues with Boeing's new Starliner spaceship.

Now, they'll have to stay just a bit longer because SpaceX needs extra time to prepare its Crew Dragon spaceship.

Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were set to finally come back to Earth in February. Now the earliest they can return is in late March, NASA announced in a blog post on Wednesday.

While one month is not a terribly long delay by regular NASA mission standards, the extra time in orbit is significant considering Wilmore and Williams launched into space for a roughly eight-day mission way back in June.

SpaceX needs extra time to process a new spaceship

SpaceX's Crew-10 mission, originally scheduled for February, is supposed to relieve Wilmore and Williams and allow them to finally return home.

NASA and SpaceX recently decided, though, to use a new Dragon spaceship rather than a used, refurbished one for that launch, according to NASA's blog post.

The new spaceship will need extra time after it ships to SpaceX's processing facility in Florida in January. That's why NASA pushed back the launch date.

"Fabrication, assembly, testing, and final integration of a new spacecraft is a painstaking endeavor that requires great attention to detail," Steve Stich, the manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, said in a statement.

This was "the best option for meeting NASA's requirements and achieving space station objectives for 2025," the blog post said.

SpaceX has reused Dragon spaceships for NASA missions in the past. However, a NASA spokesperson told BI that certifying the new spacecraft will expand the company's Crew Dragon fleet to five human-rated spaceships, for both NASA and private missions.

In a statement sent in an email, the spokesperson said that Wilmore, Williams, and their crewmate Nick Hague were "supportive of the path forward."

They added that the three astronauts "understood the possibilities and unknowns, including being aboard station longer than planned."

SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

SpaceX to the rescue

The question of how Wilmore and Williams would get back to Earth arose soon after their launch.

As their newly-minted Boeing Starliner ship approached the ISS in early June, it experienced engine issues that raised NASA officials' eyebrows.

After weeks of testing and deliberating, NASA decided to send the Starliner back to Earth empty. Officials weren't confident enough that it was safe.

Meanwhile, Wilmore and Williams stayed on the space station. NASA reassigned them to its next mission with SpaceX, called Crew-9. They would have a ride home on that spaceship. Two other astronauts gave up their SpaceX seats to make room for the Boeing duo.

The catch was that Wilmore and Williams would have to serve the same six-month shift as the rest of Crew-9. They've been conducting experiments and maintenance on the ISS just like everyone else, with the promise of coming home in February.

Now, they'll have to wait another month.

"We appreciate the hard work by the SpaceX team to expand the Dragon fleet in support of our missions," Stich said in the Wednesday statement, adding his appreciation for "the flexibility of the station program and expedition crews."

• Gov. Gavin Newsom of California declared a "proactive" state of emergency over the H5N1 bird flu.
• The virus has spread rapidly through US dairy cattle herds, with 16 states affected.
• The CDC reports low public risk with no human-to-human spread, but 61 human cases have been detected.

Gov. Gavin Newsom of California declared a state of emergency over the H5N1 avian influenza virus on Wednesday.

The bird flu has been spreading rapidly through US dairy cattle herds since March, with infections confirmed in 16 states. Its jump from birds to cows surprised many virologists and raised concerns about the possibility that it could mutate enough to sustain human-to-human transmission.

For now, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not detected humans spreading the virus to each other and says the risk to the public remains low.

Still, 61 human cases have been confirmed across the country, with 34 of them in California. Many of these cases have been linked to infected cows or birds.

Newsom's declaration, which his office called a "proactive action," followed the detection of new cattle infections on dairy farms in Southern California, according to the office's statement.

"This proclamation is a targeted action to ensure government agencies have the resources and flexibility they need to respond quickly to this outbreak," Newsom said in a statement.

The FDA has said that grocery-shelf beef and dairy continue to be safe to consume. However, the FDA and unaffiliated virus experts have advised against drinking raw milk, which is not pasteurized and can contain harmful microorganisms.

"While the risk to the public remains low, we will continue to take all necessary steps to prevent the spread of this virus," Newsom said.

Also on Wednesday, the CDC confirmed the first case of severe symptoms in a human H5N1 infection, in Louisiana.

Slowing bird flu's spread

The H5N1 virus was first detected in a California cow on August 30. Since then, the governor's office reported, the state has distributed millions of pieces of protective equipment to dairy-farm workers and run a public education campaign.

Infectious-disease experts have previously told BI that limiting the virus's spread through cows can help reduce the odds of sustained human transmission.

That's because the more the virus replicates itself, the more opportunities it has to mutate, and the more new mutations can take hold and spread to new animals. As H5N1 spreads in cattle, a mammal population that lives close to humans, it gets more chances to adapt to humans.

"There's such a vast amount of virus at the moment. And clearly it is changing, and it's doing new and unexpected things," Christopher Dye, an epidemiologist and senior research fellow at the University of Oxford, told BI in June.

In a paper in the medical journal BMJ, Dye and his colleague Wendy Barclay argued that the risk of a major human outbreak was "large, plausible, and imminent" — but not inevitable.

When that paper was published in early June, there had only been three confirmed human cases in the US.

"Influenza has always been a concern for decades and decades, and this particular form of influenza for at least two decades," Dye said. Bird flu, he added, has "risen to a level of concern, I think, which is greater than ever before."

• The Arctic is rapidly changing from the climate crisis, with no "new normal," scientists warn.
• Wildfires and permafrost thaw are making the tundra emit more carbon than it absorbs.
• From beaver invasions to giant holes, drastic changes in the Arctic are affecting the entire planet.

From Alaska to Siberia, the Arctic is changing so rapidly that there is no "normal" there now, scientists warn. The consequences reach across the globe.

The Arctic tundra now releases more carbon than it naturally draws down from the sky, as wildfires burn down its trees and permafrost thaw releases potent gases from its soil.

Once-brown regions are turning green with vegetation, while green areas are turning brown and barren. Sea ice and herds of caribou are disappearing.

This summer was the wettest on record for the Arctic overall, as rain is becoming more common than snow in some areas. Region by region, though, rainfall and the snow season are knocking down both high and low records.

Decades of data on "vital signs" suggest that "the Arctic exists now within a new regime, in which conditions year after year are substantially different than just a couple of decades ago," Twila Moon, a scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, said in a briefing on Tuesday.

"Climate change is not bringing about a new normal," she added. "Instead, climate change is bringing ongoing and rapid change."

That's because the Arctic is warming about four times faster than the rest of the planet, according to previous research.

The increase in average temperatures is changing weather and landscapes in the Arctic, speeding up the climate crisis worldwide.

Giant holes, beaver invasions, and polar wildfires

For example, beavers are moving into Alaska's tundra and transforming its waterways with their dams, as warmer conditions have brought more wooded, comfortable riverbanks for them.

In Siberia, a giant hole in the ground is rapidly growing because the permafrost — a layer of soil that used to be permanently frozen — is thawing.

That's an extreme example, but melt and thaw is happening all over the planet's northernmost regions. Combined with drastic swings in weather year-to-year, these changes are wreaking havoc on Arctic landscapes, ecosystems, and people.

"These dramatic differences are making it difficult for communities to plan and they create safety issues for people who are used to more stable ice, snow, and temperature," Moon said.

She was presenting the Arctic Report Card, an update that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration publishes each year, at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union.

This year's report revealed a crucial shift in northern landscapes: The Arctic tundra is no longer a net carbon sink, with its boreal forests pulling carbon dioxide from the sky. Now it's a net source of carbon emissions.

"This transition from a carbon sink to a source is of global concern," Brendan Rogers, a scientist studying the tundra at the Woodwell Climate Research Center, said in the briefing.

He added that the tundra's carbon emissions are relatively small for now, "but it's that transition that we're concerned about."

This shift is partly due to giant polar wildfires burning down tundra vegetation and all the carbon it's stored. It's also because of permafrost thaw, which releases large amounts of methane — a heat-trapping gas more potent than carbon dioxide — as bacteria in the soil digest thawing plant matter.

Meanwhile, rising Arctic temperatures are driving ice melt, including on the Greenland Ice Sheet, which is a major contributor to sea-level rise worldwide. Rising oceans are already increasing flooding in coastal cities across the planet.

For example, US coastal cities from Boston to San Diego have seen more and more flood days per year every decade since 1950, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Arctic science is more important than ever

Reporters asked the NOAA scientists about the incoming Trump administration and whether they were concerned about losing funding for their Arctic research.

"The need, the requirement, the demand signal if you will, is higher than ever before," Richard Spinrad, the NOAA Administrator, said in the briefing.

Changes in extreme weather and sea level across the globe show that "there's a need for these investments to increase right now," he said, adding that studies have shown "the return on those investments is extraordinary, in many cases 10 to 1 in terms of protection of lives and property."

• The billionaire Jared Isaacman said his Polaris missions with SpaceX are "a question mark" now.
• Donald Trump nominated Isaacman for NASA Administrator months after he did SpaceX's first spacewalk.
• Space experts doubt Isaacman will fly during his NASA term, due to job demands and safety risks.

SpaceX and its go-to billionaire-turned-private-astronaut seem to be going their separate ways, at least for the next four years.

Jared Isaacman has flown two SpaceX missions to space and is slated to fly two more.

However, Isaacman may no longer fly those missions now that President-elect Donald Trump has tapped him to lead NASA.

Isaacman is the founder and CEO of a payments-processing company called Shift4, but he's more famous for conducting the world's first commercial spacewalk in September.

The spacewalk was the main feature of the first mission of the Polaris Program, which Isaacman started in partnership with SpaceX to supercharge the company's human-spaceflight capabilities as it aims for the moon and Mars.

The program is scheduled to fly two future missions, including the first human flight aboard SpaceX's Starship mega-rocket.

Isaacman has previously indicated that he would be on board that flight. It would be a crucial step in Elon Musk's plans to establish a human settlement on Mars using Starship.

The NASA nomination throws that mission into uncertainty, Isaacman acknowledged on Wednesday.

"The future of the Polaris program is a little bit of a question mark at the moment. It may wind up on hold for a moment," Isaacman said at the Spacepower 2024 conference in Orlando, according to Reuters.

Indeed, shortly after his nomination, experts told Business Insider that it was unlikely Isaacman would fly to space during his term as NASA Administrator.

"Well, it certainly has never happened before," John Logsdon, the founder of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, told BI.

That doesn't mean it can't happen, but Logsdon added, "NASA Administrator is a full-time, high-level government job. Taking time off to train for and carry out another spaceflight seems to me to be a little implausible."

If Isaacman wanted to fly a SpaceX mission during his NASA term, "that would take some thought on his part and the rest of the team," George Nield, a former head of the FAA's office of commercial space transportation, told BI. "What's the risk, what's the benefit, what happens if there's a bad day, and are there succession plans?"

Nield co-authored a 2020 analysis which calculated that US spaceflight has a 1% fatal failure rate, because four out of nearly 400 spaceflights have ended in deadly malfunctions. That's a rate 10,000 times greater than commercial airliners.

The US Senate has to confirm Isaacman's nomination before he can take office.

"Having the boss of the enterprise take the risk of spaceflight would be unusual, but we live in unusual times," Logsdon said.

• Trump's choice of NASA Administrator suggests he wants to shake up the agency's status quo.
• Jared Isaacman, a billionaire and SpaceX astronaut, is a mascot of the commercial space age.
• He might push for getting humans to the moon and Mars faster, but he'll have to go through Congress.

President-elect Donald Trump has made a bold choice for NASA's new leader.

Trump announced in a Truth Social post on Wednesday that his choice for NASA Administrator is Jared Isaacman — a CEO, fighter-jet pilot, and two-time SpaceX astronaut.

Isaacman is not exactly a traditional pick. For one, he would be the first billionaire to lead the agency. More importantly, though, he's on the cutting edge of the new commercial space age, where private companies are becoming the biggest actors in space.

Some past NASA administrators were former NASA astronauts. Others were former executives from the aerospace industry. Many were politicians — including Trump's last NASA chief, Jim Bridenstine, and the current administrator, Bill Nelson.

Isaacman is none of those things. He has, however, flown to space in a Crew Dragon spaceship, conducted the first-ever commercial spacewalk in a brand-new SpaceX spacesuit, and plans to fly on future missions with the company — aboard its Starship mega-rocket, no less.

The nomination, which still has to be confirmed by the Senate, suggests that Trump wants to shake things up at NASA.

"He certainly has the potential to be a disruptor," Leroy Chiao, a former NASA astronaut and International Space Station commander who now works in consulting, told Business Insider. "I think it's a great pick. It's much better than just status quo — another retiring member of Congress."

It's also another signal that Trump might make a big push to put the next humans on the moon, and even the first humans on Mars.

Speeding up the road to Mars

Isaacman's enthusiasm for space exploration isn't his only bona fide. He also has a businessman's mindset and a close relationship with Elon Musk. The two share the goal of getting humans to Mars.

Chiao hopes Isaacman can speed up the process.

Indeed, in a post on X accepting the nomination, Isaacman wrote that NASA would help make humanity "a true spacefaring civilization."

"Americans will walk on the Moon and Mars and in doing so, we will make life better here on Earth," he added.

NASA is already working on it. The Artemis program began as the last Trump administration's iteration of a multi-president effort to send humans to deep space again. Artemis aims to send astronauts back to the moon for the first time in over 50 years, and eventually to use the moon as a jumping-off point to send people to Mars.

However, Artemis is years behind schedule and billions over budget, largely due to technical and programmatic challenges with the giant Space Launch System that NASA is building for moon missions. Many industry commentators see SLS as a waste of government funds, when NASA could instead lean on commercial heavy-lift rockets like Starship.

"Frankly, we have been at the status quo of this exploration program in one form or another over the last several presidents since 2004," Chiao said, "and we're not even close to launching the first astronaut on a new vehicle."

In fact, NASA just pushed back the launch date for its first crewed Artemis mission, set to fly around the moon using SLS. On Thursday the agency delayed the mission by another seven months, to April 2026, citing issues with the system's Orion spaceship.

That's the slow-moving status quo that Trump might aim to shake up.

To that end, efficiency may be a top priority for Isaacman. That could mean reassessing Artemis entirely or cutting back some of NASA's centers and facilities nationwide, according to Abhi Tripathi, a former NASA engineer and SpaceX mission director who now leads mission operations at the UC Berkeley Space Sciences Lab.

"I definitely think SLS will be on the chopping board," Tripathi told BI.

First, though, Isaacman will have to go through Congress.

"He is going to ruffle a lot of feathers," Chiao said.

Pushing through Congress

Congress can be a formidable wall for anyone trying to revolutionize NASA.

In places like Alabama and Southern California, a status quo NASA fuels the work of legacy aerospace contractors like Boeing and Northrop Grumman.

"The majority of members of Congress want jobs in their district, and they look at the space program primarily through that lens," Tripathi said.

Plus, he added, "the lobbying arms of all of those big contractors will be basically camped outside their congressional representative's office, asking them to thwart any big plans that would change the status quo greatly."

It'll all come to a head when the Trump White House makes its budget proposal. That's when Congress will approve or deny any cuts or reprioritizations that Trump and his NASA Administrator try to make.

If Trump wants to put boots on Mars fast, he'll have to convince individual Congress members to push those changes through.

"I think Jared is a very smart and capable individual," Tripathi said, "but his ability to wield power will completely depend upon how much his president will back him up."

• A 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck off the shore of Northern California Thursday morning.
• Tsunami warnings have been lifted across northern California and southern Oregon.
• Aftershocks are ongoing, and there's a small chance they could outdo the first quake.

A major earthquake struck near California's coast on Thursday, and aftershocks are still ongoing.

The 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck at about 10:44 a.m. Pacific Time. Its epicenter was offshore, about 62 miles west-southwest of Ferndale, California, according to data from the United States Geological Survey.

The USGS website reported more than 35 smaller quakes across that area over the ensuing three hours, of magnitudes ranging from 2.5 to 4.7, including two quakes that occurred inland.

"There's been quite a lot of aftershocks," Harold Tobin, Washington's state seismologist and the director of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, told Business Insider.

As of Thursday afternoon, the USGS forecasts up to 130 aftershocks with a magnitude of 3 or higher within the next week, and a 53% chance of aftershocks larger than magnitude 5.

"It's perfectly plausible that there could be a larger aftershock or more than one larger aftershock," Tobin said.

The USGS estimates the odds are 1 in 100 of an aftershock with a magnitude of 7 or greater.

The fault that slipped

The fault region which produced the 7.0 earthquake is a very seismically active one.

It's called the Mendocino triple junction because three different tectonic plates meet there: the Pacific, North American, and Juan de Fuca plates.

It's right between two notorious earthquake zones, at the northern end of the San Andreas fault and the southern end of the Cascadia Subduction Zone. The CSZ has some of the planet's greatest seismic potential, capable of producing quakes as big as 9.0.

The Mendocino triple junction, however, is less impressive.

"Somewhere in the magnitude sevens range is about as big as things seem to get out there," Tobin said.

The region has produced five earthquakes of magnitude 7 or larger in the past century, according to USGS.

The Thursday quake could have slightly increased the chance of other earthquakes along adjacent faults by increasing stress in those areas.

"It's unlikely that it had a really large, significant impact" on those fault systems, though, Tobin said. The odds are "not zero, but very low," he added.

Tsunami scare

The initial quake triggered tsunami warnings and evacuations — which have since been canceled — along the coast of northern California to southern Oregon, including the San Francisco Bay Area.

The warnings lasted about an hour. The National Tsunami Warning Center canceled them around 11:54 a.m. local time, saying there was no longer a threat.

Most likely, the reason there was no tsunami is that the earthquake came from plates moving side-by-side against each other. This is called a strike-slip earthquake. Because the motion was mostly horizontal, and not vertical, it didn't push the ocean above upward to create a wave.

Even so, the warning was "warranted," Tobin said.

"Until we know enough parameters of the earthquake and can verify whether there is or isn't an actual wave, it's wise to have those warnings," he added.

Possible earthquake damage

The USGS also reported on X a "low likelihood of shaking-related fatalities. Some damage is possible and the impact should be relatively localized."

Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency for three counties in Northern California which were near the offshore epicenter of the quake.

"We're concerned about damage," he said in a press briefing, adding that the declaration would allow the state to "provide more resources."

According to CNN, about 10,000 homes and businesses in Humboldt County — the area nearest the epicenter — were without power immediately after the large quake. As of Thursday afternoon, though, PowerOutage.us reported fewer than 500 customers without power there.

Newsom said that "early damage assessments are being made," but that the state had no additional information to share yet.

This is a developing story, check back for more information.

• Bill Gates said 2024 brought a corporate "pivot" toward climate tech, in a foreword to a new report.
• The report, by Gates's firm Breakthrough Energy, urged VCs to "prime the pump" on climate startups.
• While new climate tech emerges, proven solutions like solar energy still need help proliferating.

This has been a big year for the technologies that could save our planet.

America's first large offshore wind farm began powering homes. The Bill Gates-backed startup Graphyte opened its first carbon-removal plant in Arkansas. Another startup, Sublime Systems, secured a site and funding for its first low-carbon cement manufacturing facility.

There's also been a "corporate climate pivot," according to a report by Breakthrough Energy, a climate investment firm and startup catalyzer founded by Gates.

"We noticed a subtle, but important, perspective shift from both the investors and corporations we engage with," Gates wrote in an intro to the report, which the firm published in October with the tagline "climate tech has arrived."

More than just reducing their carbon footprint, corporate leaders "want to get in at the ground floor of new industries that, one day, will be crucial to the survival of their businesses," Gates wrote.

Other industry experts also told Business Insider that climate tech is picking up steam, and now emerging companies need more funding to scale up.

Corporate investment in climate tech

Breakthrough Energy focuses on its own partners in the report, such as American Airlines investing in a startup making hydrogen-based plane fuel. It's not the only VC firm seeing large corporations lean into climate tech more, though.

A number of long-standing corporate partners, like the chemicals giant BASF or the building-materials manufacturer Saint-Gobain, work with the nonprofit climate-tech incubator Greentown Labs to support early-stage companies.

Aisling Carlson, the senior vice president of partnerships at Greentown, told BI that the firm's oldest corporate partners have been hiring, "beefing up" their teams that invest in emerging climate tech.

"Their approach to climate innovation and their internal expertise has matured," Carlson said.

Meanwhile, other corporations are beginning to engage with climate tech for the first time. Carlson said Greentown has seen new interest from corporations that haven't invested much in climate tech, though no partnerships have been publicly announced yet.

"They are all thinking about their carbon footprint and how they can decarbonize," she added.

Don't forget about old reliables like solar

Though new technologies, like direct air capture plants that suck carbon out of the sky, can be part of the solution, Foley wants investors and politicians to remember that fighting climate change is a race against time.

"Let's deploy things that actually are cheap enough and scalable enough and ready enough," like solar power, battery storage, EV charging stations, and other tech that's already proliferating, he said.

We also have to shut down coal-fired power plants and plug abandoned gas wells that leak methane, Foley said. Efforts to stop deforestation can prevent huge amounts of carbon emissions and they're "desperately starved for money," he added.

These are the low-hanging fruits of fighting climate change.

Foley said that Gates has a history of investing in "science fiction experiments" that don't move fast enough, such as small modular nuclear reactors. After nearly 20 years of development and Gates's investment, there still isn't a single one in operation.

Sustainable aviation fuel is a similar "boondoggle," Foley said.

"That's a science experiment still, and it doesn't need or deserve billions of tax dollars," he said, adding that public funding should go to reliable solutions.

Breakthrough Energy did not respond to a request for comment.

VC can 'prime the pump' on garage innovators

Lots of futuristic climate tech just needs the funding to deploy and scale up, Gates wrote. The Breakthrough Energy report argues that venture capitalists, investors, or corporations should get in on it now, at the ground floor.

"By waiting, venture firms are only hurting their own bottom lines," the report says. By getting in early, though, investors can "prime the pump" and help early-stage companies design a product that's scalable and capable of attracting even bigger investment.

However, funding for climate tech slowed down this year, Carlson said, possibly due to investors taking a "wait and see" stance in the lead-up to the US election.

Indeed, Biden administration initiatives have boosted climate tech in recent years including the Inflation Reduction Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and the CHIPS and Science Act.

New policies have driven more government investment in green concrete and steel, according to the Breakthrough Energy report, and the IRA created more than two dozen tax credits for investing in clean-energy projects. Breakthrough concluded those credits could unlock "more than $1 trillion in private sector investment."

However, incentives like that could change with the new Trump administration.

"What I am hopeful for is that corporate commitments to net zero targets will continue to drive innovation," Carlson said. "And if there are unfavorable federal policies, that the private sector can continue to play a driving role in ensuring at least that the early-stage climate technologies are getting to market."

• Jared Isaacman is President-elect Donald Trump's pick to lead NASA.
• Isaacman has led and flown on two SpaceX missions, including the first-ever commercial spacewalk.
• Isaacman is a billionaire CEO who dropped out of high school and founded two companies.

Jared Isaacman isn't just a billionaire CEO. He's also a SpaceX astronaut, and now he's poised to lead NASA under the new Trump administration.

President-elect Donald Trump announced in a Truth Social post on Wednesday that he was nominating Isaacman to be the new NASA Administrator.

Isaacman has flown to space twice aboard SpaceX's Crew Dragon, on flights he commissioned, funded, and commanded — including a mission where he conducted the first-ever commercial spacewalk in September.

So who is Jared Isaacman, and how did the entrepreneur end up as Trump's NASA pick? Read on to learn about his career rise.

Isaacman decided to drop out of high school at the age of 15.

At the age of 15, Isaacman decided to drop out of high school and take the GED, according to the Netflix docuseries "Countdown: Inspiration4 Mission to Space."

"I was a horrible student," Isaacman said in the series. "And I wasn't, like, happy in school, either."

He described his younger self as independent and said he didn't understand things like raising your hand to go to the bathroom.

At 16, he founded a multibillion-dollar payment-processing company in his parents' basement.

Isaacman founded United Bank Card in 1999.

The company, now called Shift4, offers mobile-payment software, point-of-sale solutions, and online payments for various businesses.

Isaacman said in the Netflix docuseries that when he started the company, he would wake up every day at 7:30 a.m. and fall asleep on the keyboard at 2 or 3 in the morning.

By 2020, he took the company public. Today, Shift4 processes over $260 billion annually and serves over 200,000 customers, according to its website.

Isaacman has a wife and two kids.

Isaacman has known his wife, Monica Isaacman, for most of his life. The two come from the same town and got married in 2012. They now live in New Jersey with their two daughters.

"I want my kids to see humans walking on the moon and Mars," Isaacman told BI.

His wife said in the docuseries that she had good and bad dreams leading up to his first SpaceX mission, Inspiration4, which launched in 2021.

She said while she wouldn't want him to compromise on his dreams of going to space, she worried about what could happen if something went wrong.

Isaacman told BI in the interview that his family and wife were much more enthusiastic about the Polaris Dawn mission this time around, thanks to a successful first mission.

While there are still risks, he told BI his family is aware and accepts them.

He also founded Draken International.

Isaacman founded Draken International in 2012. The company is a private aircraft provider that also trains pilots for the US military, the UK, and NATO countries.

In 2019, Isaacman sold the company to Blackstone.

Isaacman became a billionaire in 2019.

Isaacman hit billionaire status in 2020 after selling Draken International and taking Shift4 public. His net worth is estimated at $1.7 billion, according to Forbes.

He always had a passion for flying planes.

Isaacman said in the Netflix docuseries that he took an early interest in flying and went to flight school at a local airport in 2004.

At the time, he was feeling burned out from starting his company and described flying as "therapeutic." Isaacman also set a world speed record for flying around the globe in 2009.

"I do believe you only get one crack at life," Isaacman said in the docuseries. "To the extent you have the means to do so, you have this obligation to live life to the fullest. You never know when it's going to be your last day."

He added in the docuseries that this philosophy had taken him to fly in air shows as part of a seven-ship formation aerobatic team and on mountain-climbing expeditions in Antarctica.

He's involved with philanthropy.

Isaacman has been involved in several charitable causes and organizations, including the Make-A-Wish Foundation and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

His first SpaceX mission raised over $240 million for St. Jude and was named Inspiration4 to inspire support and raise awareness for the research hospital.

Isaacman and his wife have also committed to The Giving Pledge, a charitable campaign founded by Bill Gates, Melinda French Gates, and Warren Buffett in 2010.

The Giving Pledge serves as a commitment from wealthy people to donate the majority of their wealth to philanthropy.

Isaacman's first mission to space took place in 2021.

In 2021, Isaacman funded and led the first civilian mission to space, called Inspiration4. The mission was carried out by SpaceX 's Dragon capsule.

Isaacman previously told Business Insider that the prep for the mission was extensive and involved a lot of studying and physical tests.

"The academics were pretty intense," Isaacman said, adding that there were thousands of pages across a hundred manuals to learn about SpaceX's Falcon and Dragon aircraft.

It also involved crew members drawing blood from each other and learning how to take skin samples to prepare for increased radiation levels on the trip.

Isaacman commanded the first-ever privately funded spacewalk

On September 10, Isaacman and three other crew members successfully took off on their way into orbit for the first-ever privately funded spacewalk.

The spacewalk featured SpaceX's new EVA suits.

During the spacewalk, the Polaris Dawn crew will wear the new SpaceX EVA suits → https://t.co/LRl5pPlAC9 pic.twitter.com/MVHzNwiWZU

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 10, 2024

Polaris Dawn lifted off from Launch Complex-39A at NASA's KSC, which also saw the launches of other historic missions, such as the Apollo 11 moon landing. Dragon and the Polaris Dawn crew safely arrived back on the coast of Florida on September 15.

Trump nominated Isaacman to lead NASA

In an X post on Wednesday, Isaacman called the nomination "the honor of a lifetime" and suggested that human space exploration would be a top priority.

Space-industry experts told BI that Isaacman is not a traditional pick for NASA Administrator, but his background in commercial spaceflight would benefit the agency.

"They need someone who is not afraid to try something new if the old ways aren't working," George Nield, a former head of the FAA's office of commercial space transportation, told BI.

Michelle Hanlon, executive director of the Center for Air and Space Law at the University of Mississippi School of Law, called Isaacman "an inspired pick," in part due to his "stellar" managerial skills.

"He has shown a real commitment to increasing access to space, and I think he is going to be a great person to promote space to the general public," she said.

This story was originally published on September 11, 2024, and most recently updated on December 4, 2024.

• Jared Isaacman has been nominated by Donald Trump to head up NASA.
• Isaacman has flown two historic, all-civilian SpaceX missions, with more planned in the future.
• Isaacman vowed on X to advance US space exploration and send Americans to the moon and Mars.

The man who commanded multiple space missions for Elon Musk has been nominated to lead NASA.

President-elect Donald Trump nominated Jared Isaacman, the billionaire and repeat SpaceX astronaut, to be NASA's administrator on Wednesday.

Isaacman, who is also the CEO of the payments company Shift4, recently made history by leading the first private spacewalk with SpaceX's Polaris Dawn mission. The five-day mission took Isaacman and three others further from Earth than anyone has traveled since the Apollo moon missions.

"We have to keep going," Isaacman said about space exploration in a November interview with Business Insider. "We just got to proceed with caution and just make sure we get it right. And if we do, we stand to learn so much that can change the course of trajectory of humankind."

Isaacman also previously helped finance and lead the world's first all-civilian private spaceflight. That was also a SpaceX mission, called Inspiration4, which Isaacman commanded.

"Jared will drive NASA's mission of discovery and inspiration, paving the way for groundbreaking achievements in Space science, technology, and exploration," Trump wrote in a Truth Social post announcing his nomination.

Trump pointed to Isaacman's passion for space and "exceptional leadership," demonstrated by his 25 years as the founder and CEO of Shift4. Trump also highlighted Isaacman's work as the cofounder and former CEO of Draken International, a defense aerospace company that supported the US Department of Defense, the UK, and NATO countries.

"I think that's a creative and hopeful recommendation," George Nield, a former head of the FAA's office of commercial space transportation, told Business Insider. "Jared has a lot of vision and enthusiasm."

He added that, "I would interpret this as at least an openness, if not strong advocacy, for industry playing an important role for the nation's space programs going forward."

Elon Musk, who is the founder and CEO of SpaceX and whom Trump tapped to lead a new Department of Government Efficiency, said "Congratulations" to Isaacman on X.

This would be Isaacman's first-ever role in government.

"He doesn't have experience as a government insider, and that's probably a good thing," Leroy Chiao, a former NASA astronaut and International Space Station commander who now works in consulting, told BI. "He certainly has the potential to be a disruptor, so I think it's a great pick. It's much better than just status quo."

'An era where humanity becomes a true spacefaring civilization'

Following his nomination, Isaacman wrote in a post on X that it is "the honor of a lifetime to serve in this role" and work alongside NASA.

"With the support of President Trump, I can promise you this: We will never again lose our ability to journey to the stars and never settle for second place," Isaacman said, adding that "Americans will walk on the Moon and Mars."

Isaacman added that space holds potential for advancements in various areas including manufacturing, biotechnology, and possibly new energy sources. He also shared his vision for humanity to become a "spacefaring civilization" and described a "thriving space economy" with opportunities for people to work in space.

"I want my kids to see humans walking on the moon and Mars," Isaacman previously told BI.

Michelle Hanlon, executive director of the Center for Air and Space Law at the University of Mississippi School of Law, told BI in an email that this was a "perfect direction for NASA."

It's unclear whether his new role would impact his work with SpaceX or any plans he has to fly on future missions. The Polaris Program Isaacman is leading includes two more missions over the next six to nine years, including the first crewed flight of SpaceX's Starship mega-rocket.

Nield said Isaacman and his team at NASA would likely assess the tradeoffs and the risk of him flying into space during his term as Administrator.

"NASA's got a great team. They've got super smart and experienced and motivated people, but they need a leader. They need a communicator," Nield said. "They need someone who is not afraid to try something new if the old ways aren't working. So I think I'm excited about that choice."

• Some Florida real-estate developers are building what they call hurricane-resistant communities.
• Techniques used include tying homes down with steel straps and reducing flooding with "smart lakes."
• While no home can be hurricane-proof, these strategies can minimize potential damage, experts said.

Hurricane Milton was barreling toward William Fulford's front door. The mayor of nearby Tampa, Florida, was pleading on television for area residents to leave or die. Still, Fulford, a 76-year-old retired homebuilder, was staying put.

"A lot of people would say I'm crazy," Fulford told Business Insider by phone on October 8, as the storm gained strength in the Gulf of Mexico. "But my house is great."

In 2022, Fulford bought a $1.25 million home in Hunters Point, a community in Cortez, Florida, where properties are raised 16 feet above the ground and tied together with steel straps. Fulford, whose home suffered minimal damage from Hurricane Milton, told Business Insider he believes his home is "hurricane-proof."

More than a few developers are betting on Florida's future by building hurricane-resistant communities like Fulford's. Hurricane season officially ends on November 30, but the movement toward resilient homes has increased as the climate crisis drives fiercer storms.

The prospect appeals to Florida homeowners grappling with stress and uncertainty as home insurance premiums and homeowners' association, or HOA, fees rise and the risk of severe storm damage mounts. After Hurricanes Helene and Milton in September and October, respectively, the state suffered an estimated $21 to $34 billion in damages to commercial and residential properties, including uninsured properties, according to real-estate analytics site Corelogic.

About two hours southeast of Hunters Point is a development called Babcock Ranch, which bills itself as "The Hometown of Tomorrow." Its builders made efforts to protect its 4,000 homes on about 17,000 acres from storms, including moving utilities underground and avoiding paths of natural water runoff.

A rep said that in the days before Hurricane Milton, Babcock Ranch saw a 390% increase in daily visits to its website. Hunters Point's developer said that two new homes have sold since last month's storm.

Three building experts told Business Insider that no home can be hurricane-proof. However, Leslie Chapman-Henderson, the president and CEO of the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes, said that Hunters Point and Babcock Ranch are good examples of what hurricane resiliency can look like.

Building entire resilient communities — instead of one home with beefed-up protections on a block with regular homes — can protect neighborhoods and property values against Florida's unsettled future, she added.

"Our wish is to see all developers do this because they're on the leading edge," Chapman-Henderson said.

Hunters Point homes are high off the ground and air-tight

Hunters Point is in Florida's last working fishing village an hour south of Tampa.

The resiliency of its homes begins with their height. Located on a peninsula jutting out into Sarasota Bay, the development is just feet away from the coastline and vulnerable to storm surges like those seen during Hurricanes Helene and Milton, which reached almost seven feet.

To counteract that risk, Hunters Point homes — which were developed and tested in a warehouse for 18 months — are built so that the bottom floor is a garage and storage, the middle floor is the home's first floor, and another level above has bedrooms — all connected by an elevator.

"You don't step into the house until you're 16 feet above the flood zone," developer Marshall Gobuty told Business Insider.

Currently, 31 of the 86 planned units at Hunter's Point have been built, with homes ranging in price from $1.45 million for nearly 1,700 square feet to $1.69 million for over 3,400 square feet.

Another feature of the homes is an extra-fortified base, in which the slab and foundation are poured together as one piece. The homes' walls are built with 2x6 beams instead of 2x4 beams to increase resiliency and allow for more insulation. The sides of the walls, the ceilings, and the roof are then filled in with closed foam to make the home airtight.

Every level is reinforced with metal straps all the way down to the foundation to hold the home together.

These connections — roof to walls, walls to each other, and walls to foundation — are fundamental to building a house that can withstand hurricane-force winds.

Chapman-Henderson said the real innovations built into these homes are the fortifications against the wind: the walls bolted into the foundation and the sturdier wood in the frames.

Any vulnerability in those structural connections could doom the whole house. When that happens, "usually roofs blow off first because they're not connected well to the walls, and then the walls don't have any lateral support, and they go, and you've lost the whole building," Mike O'Reilly, a licensed engineer and construction instructor at Colorado State University, told BI.

In Hunters Point homes, though, "everything is connected. There are no seams," Gobuty told BI. "Every house is built like a Yeti cooler."

Babcock Ranch uses "smart ponds" to manage flooding

Babcock Ranch in Punta Gorda, Florida, is built on land 30 feet above sea level, far from the coast.

So far, 3,752 homes have been built out of a planned 19,500 units. The development functions like a city, with an elementary school, a middle school, a high school, a shopping district, a recreation lodge, and dozens of hiking trails. Homes on the market range from a two-bedroom condo for $255,000 to a four-bedroom single-family home with its own pool for $1.695 million.

When developer Syd Kitson purchased the land in 2006, his team spent hours poring over maps dating back to the 1940s to find the property's natural flowways, which are how excess water naturally runs out of the area during flooding.

The team intentionally sacrificed building thousands of units to leave that land untouched.

"That's part of working with Mother Nature, rather than working against Mother Nature," Kitson told BI.

Babcock Ranch also has "smart lakes," or man-made bodies of water throughout the development. These lakes have solar-powered pumps with predictive analytics that raise and lower the lake's height when a storm nears. If the area expects major flooding, the smart lakes will lower to prepare for the increased rainfall.

"Our philosophy is to do everything in our power to be as resilient as we possibly can," Kitson said.

Babcock Ranch welcomed its first residents in 2018. It faced its first major test in 2021 when the eye of Category 4 storm Hurricane Ian brought 150 mph wind gusts to the development. The property only sustained minimal damage, including fallen trees and a few broken solar panels, Kitson said.

Downed power lines and dayslong blackouts often affect large swaths of the state following major hurricanes. Babcock Ranch placed all utilities, including water, electricity, and wastewater, underground to prevent that.

"You won't see a single utility pole in Babcock Ranch," Kitson said.

The submerged power poles are built in concrete tubes designed to withstand 165 mph wind gusts.

Chapman-Henderson, of the nonprofit that advocates for safe homes, called the smart lakes and buried utilities "innovative" and added that recent storms have proven these strategies are effective.

Babcock Ranch is so well regarded for its safety during a storm that the elementary school's fieldhouse serves as a state- and county-designated evacuation center. Built to withstand 150 mph wind gusts, the fieldhouse provided shelter for 1,300 Floridians during Hurricane Milton.

"We're not a place where you evacuate. We're a place where people being ordered to evacuate come," Kitson said.

Hurricane resistance is the future of Florida homebuilding

Hunter's Point and Babcock Ranch are part of a growing movement for more resilient homes.

Chapman-Henderson warned, however, that residents shouldn't let their home's sturdiness make them complacent. They should still evacuate if authorities call for it.

"We can build to withstand these events, but we should never say it's absolute without fail," she said.

Calling a house 100% hurricane-proof is "like calling the Titanic unsinkable," O'Reilly said.

Though there isn't a single national standard for hurricane-resistant buildings, Fortified — a program run by the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety, an industry-backed research group — evaluates one of the most critical structures for a home's resiliency: its roof. Fortified grants certifications to homeowners who strengthen their roofs through different methods, such as using grooved, ring-shank nails instead of traditionally smooth ones.

More homeowners are requesting to have their roofs certified as stronger-than-average, Fred Malik, managing director of Fortified, told BI. Fortified certifications have risen from less than 1,000 in 2016 to nearly 12,000 last year, bringing the grand total to nearly 70,000 over the program's lifetime, Malik added. The program anticipates adding another 17,000 by the end of this year.

Though Hunters Point and Babcock Ranch have not yet participated in Fortified, Malik said the measures their builders are taking seem effective.

"I get really nervous when anybody refers to anything as something 'proof,'" Malik told BI. "But they are making some really good decisions."