The X-47B prototype on Tuesday flew off an aircraft carrier and into the history books. Today's achievement, the first-ever catapult launch of an unmanned aircraft from the flight deck of a carrier, promises to open up a new chapter in the annals of naval aviation. Photo: An X-47B pilot-less drone combat aircraft is launched for the first time off an aircraft carrier, the USS George H. W. Bush, in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Virginia, May 14, 2013. The U.S. Navy made aviation history on Tuesday by catapulting an unmanned jet off an aircraft carrier for the first time, testing a long-range, stealthy, bat-winged plane that represents a jump forward in drone technology. (Photo by Jason Reed/Reuters)

A rainbow appears over the Louisiana gulf May 26, 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico near Brush Island, Louisiana. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Skiers and snow boarders descend from a slope as they attempt to break the record for mass skiing in swimming suits at Rosa Khutor resort near Sochi, Russia, April 9, 2016. (Photo by Kazbek Basayev/Reuters)

Pilots plan a flight manoeuvre with model aircraft at a military air base in Vasylkiv, Ukraine, August 3, 2016. (Photo by Gleb Garanich/Reuters)

Komodo Judo by Andrey Gudkov. Finalist, Amphibians & Reptiles. Two large male Komodo dragons hissing angrily at each other in Indonesia’s Komodo national park. Komodo dragons can grow up to 8ft. (Photo by Andrey Gudkov/Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2015)

Ngorongoro Crater (Tanzania). At 610m deep and 260 sq km, this is the largest unflooded caldera in the world. A blue-green vision from above it's a haven for engangered wildlife and Maasai livestock. The crater was formed three million years ago when a giant volcano, which could have been as high as Kilimanjaro, exploded and collapsed. The caldera formed the concentric fractures in the crust cracked down to a magma reservoir deep underground. (Photo by John Bryant/Getty Images)

U.S Army combat camera photographer Spc. Hilda Clayton took this photo July 2, 2013 that was released by the U.S. Army, that shows an Afghan soldier engulfed in flame as a mortar tube explodes during an Afghan National Army live-fire training exercise in Laghman Province, Afghanistan. The accident killed Clayton and four Afghan National Army soldiers. (Photo by Spc. Hilda Clayton/U.S. Army via AP Photo)

Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) plotters at work at Coastal Artillery Headquarters in Dover, December 1942. The Auxiliary Territorial Service was the women's branch of the British Army during the Second World War. It was formed on 9 September 1938, initially as a women's voluntary service, and existed until 1 February 1949, when it was merged into the Women's Royal Army Corps. The ATS had its roots in the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC), which was formed in 1917 as a voluntary service. During the First World War its members served in a number of jobs including clerks, cooks, telephonists and waitresses. The WAAC was disbanded after four years in 1921. (Photo by Ted Dearberg/IWM/PA Wire)