Images from space reveal the beauty and potentially deadly nature of Typhoon Noru, Earth's strongest storm of 2017

U.S. Astronaut Randy Bresnik took this photograph of Typhoon Noru from the International Space Station. (Source: Randy Bresnik/@AstroKomrade via Twitter) After a very long and strange trip, powerful Typhoon Noru has turned toward Japan. As of Wednesday afternoon in the U.S., the storm's maximum sustained winds were pegged at about 115 miles per hour, putting it in Category 3 territory. It now looks like Noru will come ashore on Saturday in the northern reaches of the Ryukyu Islands, which stretch to the south of Japan's main islands in a gentle arc. The forecast from the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, which is reflected in the graphic below, then takes the storm northward across Kyushu Island, where the city of Nagasaki is located, and then out into the Sea of Japan. But some forecast models show Noru bending to the northeast, which would take it on a potentially deadly march up along the main part of Japan. As the Associated Press reports: