Friday☕️🌎

Trending:

September 10, 2026 — Israel destroyed more than two kilometers (1.24 miles) of Hezbollah tunnels beneath the strategic Ali Taher Ridge in southern Lebanon, using about 1,100 tons of explosives after Israeli forces captured and cleared the underground complex.

The IDF says the Iranian-funded network served as a major Hezbollah command center and contained Iranian-made rockets, missiles, drones, and other weapons; the massive demolition was detected as a magnitude 4.1 seismic event.

Houthis vs Saudi Arabia:

September 11, 2026 — Fighting between Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s Houthis has sharply escalated, with Houthi missile and drone attacks targeting Khamis Mushait, Abha and Jazan, while Saudi forces have responded with dozens of strikes in Yemen; Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has also reportedly urged President Trump to launch direct U.S. military action against the Houthis.

Separately, satellite data appears to show a major fire and nearly 100-kilometer (62-mile) smoke plume along Saudi Arabia’s East-West oil pipeline, its main route for bypassing the Strait of Hormuz. A Houthi strike has not been confirmed, but if the pipeline was hit, it would threaten a route capable of moving roughly 7 million barrels of oil per day.

Economics & Markets:

Past 1 year of gold price action:

Past 1 year of silver price action:

Science & Technology:

September 10, 2026 — OpenAI launched the new Data plugin for ChatGPT Work and Codex, allowing businesses to connect their existing data and ask questions in plain English to analyze performance, investigate changes, and create interactive dashboards and reports.

The plugin can use a company’s existing metric definitions and business context, while access to connected data remains governed by each user’s existing permissions.

Space:

Happily Ever Faster — September 11, 2026 — Rocket Lab launched an Electron rocket from Mahia Peninsula, New Zealand, at 11:28 p.m. local time.

USSF-153 — September 10, 2026 — SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 carrying the classified U.S. Space Force USSF-153 mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, at 8:42 a.m. local time.

Yaogan 53/56 — September 10, 2026 — China launched six Yaogan military remote-sensing satellites aboard a Long March 4B from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center at 5:00 p.m. local time.

EARTH INTELLIGENCE:

We just launched CITY WATCH on all app stores! CITY WATCH is a city monitor for the Tampa Bay area for exploring trending locations, upcoming events, and what’s happening near you. Download at the link below!

CITY WATCH is completly free, just like EARTH WATCH. On our other app (EARTH INTEL), EARTH WATCH can now monitor the following:
Undersea cables
Hurricanes and Storms
Earthquakes
Global Space lunch activities
Space Stations
Global Events
Global Military Actions

EARTH WATCH is always collecting, analyzing, and display new information every few minutes and is free for anyone to use or access on our mobile app (EARTH INTEL) or at earthwatch.io

Statistic:

Largest companies by market cap:

🇺🇸 NVIDIA: $5.272T
🇺🇸 Apple: $4.766T
🇺🇸 Alphabet (Google): $4.040T
🇺🇸 Microsoft: $3.656T
🇺🇸 Amazon: $2.716T
🇹🇼 TSMC: $2.219T
🇺🇸 SpaceX: $1.953T
🇺🇸 Broadcom: $1.716T
🇸🇦 Saudi Aramco: $1.684T
🇺🇸 Meta Platforms: $1.641T
🇺🇸 Tesla: $1.435T
🇰🇷 Samsung: $1.259T
🇺🇸 Micron Technology: $1.103T
🇺🇸 Berkshire Hathaway: $1.085T
🇺🇸 Eli Lilly: $1.001T
🇺🇸 JPMorgan Chase: $939.82B
🇰🇷 SK Hynix: $934.53B
🇺🇸 Walmart: $841.40B
🇺🇸 AMD: $822.11B
🇺🇸 Visa: $685.59B
🇺🇸 Exxon Mobil: $679.41B
🇳🇱 ASML: $648.14B
🇺🇸 Johnson & Johnson: $641.87B
🇨🇳 CXMT: $604.06B
🇺🇸 Intel: $530.30B

The History of Electricity:

Electricity was not invented at one moment—it was understood and engineered over more than 2,500 years. Around 600 BC, Thales of Miletus described static electricity from rubbed amber. William Gilbert (1600) distinguished electricity from magnetism; Benjamin Franklin (1752) demonstrated the electrical nature of lightning; Alessandro Volta created the first practical battery in 1800; and Michael Faraday discovered electromagnetic induction in 1831, establishing the principle behind generators and transformers. James Clerk Maxwell unified electricity and magnetism mathematically in the 1860s. Commercial electricity accelerated when Thomas Edison opened Pearl Street Station in 1882, supplying New York with direct current. The resulting “War of the Currents” placed Edison’s DC against alternating current championed by Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse. Tesla’s polyphase AC motors and systems, backed commercially by Westinghouse, allowed transformers to efficiently move electricity over long distances. AC demonstrated its superiority at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair and Niagara Falls hydroelectric project in 1895–1896, becoming the foundation of modern grids. Tesla later experimented with high-frequency electricity and wireless power at Colorado Springs (1899) and Wardenclyffe Tower (1901). Claims that he possessed a suppressed unlimited “free-energy” technology are notable; his verified achievements in AC power, motors, resonant circuits, high-frequency electricity, and wireless technology were already revolutionary.
The modern grid became one of civilization’s largest machines: power plants generate electricity, high-voltage transmission lines move it long distances, substations change voltage, and distribution networks deliver it to users. Coal, oil, and natural gas burn fuel to drive turbines; nuclear fission splits uranium atoms to produce heat; hydroelectricity uses moving water; wind rotates turbines; solar photovoltaics directly convert sunlight into electricity; geothermal uses Earth’s heat; and batteries store electricity generated elsewhere. Coal powered much of industrialization, major hydro projects such as Hoover Dam (1936) expanded renewable generation, and commercial nuclear power emerged with Obninsk (1954) and Shippingport (1957). Natural-gas combined-cycle plants expanded rapidly during the 1990s–2000s, followed by enormous wind, solar, and battery growth. There is no universal “best” source: nuclear offers exceptional energy density, reliability, and capacity factors; natural gas is dispatchable; hydro combines renewable generation with flexibility; wind is inexpensive in favorable regions; and solar is exceptionally fast and scalable to deploy, although variable renewables require transmission, storage, or complementary generation. The major long-term research frontier is nuclear fusion, alongside small modular and advanced fission reactors, enhanced geothermal, long-duration batteries, hydrogen, superconductors, and AI-managed grids. Fusion research progressed from Soviet tokamaks in the 1950s to ITER and the U.S. National Ignition Facility achieving laboratory fusion ignition in 2022, but commercial fusion power has not yet been achieved.
By 2026, electricity demand is accelerating again because of AI data centers, semiconductor manufacturing, electric vehicles, industrial electrification, and growing digital infrastructure. China generates more electricity than any country in the world, substantially ahead of the United States, and is simultaneously the largest coal user and the world’s most aggressive builder of solar, wind, batteries, transmission, hydro, and new nuclear capacity. In 2025 alone, China added roughly 370 GW of solar and 117 GW of wind. The United States generated roughly 4,430 TWh in 2025, led by natural gas, with renewables and nuclear also providing major shares; it still operates the world’s largest nuclear-generation fleet. America’s fastest new buildout is solar + battery storage, while renewed interest in nuclear is being driven partly by enormous future AI and data-center power requirements. China is deploying similar technologies at a much larger absolute scale while maintaining coal for reliability and rapidly expanding nuclear. Globally, coal remains the largest individual electricity source, but solar and wind are growing fastest, nuclear is receiving renewed investment, and fusion remains the major experimental prize. The evolution is essentially static electricity → battery → electromagnetism → generator → Edison DC → Tesla/Westinghouse AC → national grids → hydro and coal → nuclear → natural gas → wind/solar → batteries and smart grids → advanced nuclear/fusion → AI-era power expansion. The modern energy race is ultimately about who can build the strongest combination of generation + transmission + storage + nuclear + grid infrastructure, because electricity now underpins AI, defense, manufacturing, transportation, communications, and nearly every advanced technology.