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Sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is in a downward spiral, with summer minimum extents about 40 percent smaller than in the 1980s. But predicting how the sea ice is going to behave in a particular year is tricky: There are still many unknowns about the conditions of the sea ice cover, to say nothing of the difficulties of forecasting weather and ocean behavior over seasonal timescales.

The Eastern Pacific Ocean's potential tropical cyclone has developed into Tropical Storm Lidia. NASA's Aqua satellite observed some very high, towering thunderstorms in two areas of the storm and because of its close proximity to land, warnings are already in effect for areas in Mexico.

An international team of astronomers used the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to estimate whether there might be water on the seven earth-sized planets orbiting the nearby dwarf star TRAPPIST-1. The results suggest that the outer planets of the system might still harbour substantial amounts of water. This includes the three planets within the habitable zone of the star, lending further weight to the possibility that they may indeed be habitable.

NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite passed over Tropical Storm Irma in the eastern Atlantic Ocean and captured a visible image of the storm on the move.

Typhoon Sanvu developed an eye that was about 28 nautical-miles wide when NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite passed overhead and captured an image.