N.Korea threatens to strike S.Korea warships

N.Korea threatens to strike S.Korea warships near sea border

North Korea threatened Wednesday to launch an attack on South Korean warships without warning if there was even a "trifling" provocation near their disputed Yellow Sea border.

A South Korean naval ship fired warning shots Tuesday after three North Korean patrol boats crossed the sea boundary.

On Wednesday the North's military accused South Korea of "an intentional grave provocation" at a time when North Korean vessels had been chasing Chinese boats fishing illegally in the area.

In future South Korean naval vessels near the border would be the target of "precision" strikes without warning if they were involved in "any trifling provocations", it said in a statement on the official KCNA news agency.

"We are willing to go for a showdown right now if the puppet rogue is desperate to stand face-to-face with us," it said.

It is not uncommon for North Korean patrol boats and fishing boats to cross the sea border into the South.

Two North Korean patrol boats violated the sea border last month, just before US President Barack Obama arrived in Seoul for a two-day visit.

The North does not recognise the Yellow Sea border, the scene of brief but bloody naval clashes in 1999, 2002 and 2009.

In March the North fired hundreds of shells in a live exercise near the sea boundary. About 100 shells dropped into South Korean territorial waters, and the South responded with volleys of shells into North Korean waters.

Space Debris: Ecuador Pegaso satellite collides with Russian rocket remains

An Ecuadoran satellite launched last month, with the help of China, has collided with the remains of a Russian rocket in the coming hours, the country's civilian space agency warned Wednesday.

The "Pegaso" (Pegasus) nanosatellite, designed and built in Ecuador, set off aboard an unmanned rocket April 25 from the Jiuquand station in northern China. It is the country's first.

The Joint Space Operations Center in the United States, which monitors all artificial Earth-orbiting objects, said there had been no head-on crash but "data indicated a lateral collision with particles" of the Soviet-era rocket.

"Pegasus could be damaged or spinning out of control but, because it's still in orbit, we have hope," Ronnie Nader, head of the Ecuadorian Civilian Space Agency, tweeted.

"Ecuador still has its satellite, the people still have Pegasus," he wrote, saying it could take up to 48 hours to assess damage.

The 2.6-pound nanosatellite had been orbiting at a distance of 404 miles while transmitting pictures of the Earth.

Measuring just 10 by 10 by 75 centimeters (four by four by 30 inches), and weighing 1.2 kilograms (2.6 pounds), Pegaso on Thursday transmitted its first live video with audio.

Last month's launch came amid much fanfare, including a live broadcast.

The South American country plans to send a second satellite into space from Russia in July.

56,000 MPH Space Meteor Hits the Moon - Video

A NASA moon monitoring telescope captured the blast, which could be seen by the naked eye on Earth, on March 17th, 2013. 

The object was the size of a small boulder and may be part of a meteor swarm that also flew past Earth.

Credit: NASA

The object created a new crater 65 feet wide (20 meters). The crash sparked a bright flash of light that would have been visible to anyone looking at the moon at the time with the naked eye, NASA scientists say.

"On March 17, 2013, an object about the size of a small boulder hit the lunar surface in Mare Imbrium," Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office said in a statement.

"It exploded in a flash nearly 10 times as bright as anything we've ever seen before."