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It’s a cosmic collision that has astronomers rethinking one of the universe’s most colossal events: the collision of massive stars.

In a new paper published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, astronomers reveal the finding of a kilonova produced by the collision of two massive stellar objects called neutron stars. The collision is roughly 1,000 times brighter than the death of a massive star called a supernova. And they say it produced several hundred planets’ worth of gold and platinum.

But astronomers almost missed it.

The astronaut training billionaire Richard Branson to be the first passenger on Virgin Galactic has seen the Earth from 56 miles away. Now, the long-time bitcoin advocate wants to share what she saw: how blockchain and other technologies are enabling a borderless world.

Hurricane Dorian is now a “catastrophic Category 5” storm and the strongest on modern record as it approaches the northwestern Bahamas in the Caribbean, according to a National Hurricane Center update today (Sept. 1).

As of 11 a.m. EDT (1300 GMT), Dorian has maximum wind speeds of 180 mph (285 km/h) as the storm churns about 20 miles (30 km) east of Great Abaco Island, the NHC wrote in the update. The storm is about 205 miles (330 km) east of West Palm Beach, Florida.

“Devastating hurricane conditions are expected in the Abacos Islands very soon and these conditions will spread across Grand Bahama Island later today,” NASA officials said today in a morning update.