The United States Army is developing a powerful new laser weapon capable of rapidly firing metal-vaporizing pulses, much like a machine gun. The new weapon, called the Tactical Ultrashort Pulsed Laser for Army Platforms, is expected to be about a million times stronger than any other laser weapon out there, New Scientist reports.

The U.S. military thought it had cleared the decks when, on 9 July 1962, it heaved a 1.4-megaton nuclear bomb some 400 kilometers into space: Orbiting satellites were safely out of range of the blast. But in the months that followed the test, called Starfish Prime, satellites began to wink out one by one, including the world's first communications satellite, Telstar.

SpaceX launched its first set of 60 satellites last month. Now the International Astronomical Union has weighed in on the issue and underlined the potential problems to science that satellite launches could cause due to light pollution and interference with telescope and radio signals.

You've never seen a night sky sight quite like this. It's been one day since SpaceX launched its first 60 Starlink internet satellites into orbit, and a skywatching sleuth has already spotted them soaring across the night sky. Netherlands-based satellite tracker Marco Langbroek stunned space fans tonight (May 24) with this jaw-dropping video of dozens of Starlink satellites soaring overhead.

A Secret in the Sky: China Using American Satellites for Military Gains