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Spacecraft buzzes Mars on way to rare metal asteroid

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A NASA spacecraft chasing a rare metal asteroid swings past Mars this week for a gravity boost, snapping thousands of pictures as practice for the main encounter in 2029. Named Psyche like the asteroid it's after, the robotic explorer was set to slingshot past the ...

US teen Buddhist lama now studies in Himalayan foothills

KATHMANDU, Nepal — At a monastery in the Himalayan foothills, a teenage Buddhist lama blesses thousands. One by one, he taps bowed heads with a ritual vase and a peacock feather, sprinkling holy water for protection, purification, wisdom. He stops to smile at children who eye him with ...

Don’t go “On the Road”: Best to not have even seen it!

The novel “On the Road” is a cheap, skip-around glimpse of what the beat movement of the mid-1940s to early 1950s might have been like. I compare reading this work by Jack Kerouac to walking up to a house, peeking in through the mail slot by the front door, and seeing the foul, raunchy house party going on inside. The sight innervates you. It feels incorrect and wrong that you are standing there watching that party at this moment. This may sound melodramatic, but it is how I remember feeling as I read the book. This book and the characters inside it might make pretty much anyone ...

Backpacking a scenic adventure at Pictured Rocks

My first backpacking trip was last September, when it wasn’t too hot or too cold. I went with my mom’s friend Jenni Bashaw, and we hiked at Pictured Rocks near Munising. We hiked from Miners Castle to Chapel Rock, and that’s where we stayed the night. It was beautiful and also ...

Faint meow in tornado rubble leads to kitten’s rescue

As storm chaser Ashton Lemley picked his way through a tornado-ravaged Mississippi trailer park, he heard the unmistakable meow of a kitten pierce the predawn darkness. The homes were flattened just hours earlier as storms spawned at least three tornadoes across the bottom half of ...

Galaxy’s brilliant heart shines bright in new photo

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A spiral galaxy's brilliant heart outshines everything within sight in a new picture from NASA's Webb Space Telescope. The image released this week depicts the Messier 77 galaxy 45 million light-years away in the Cetus, or whale, constellation. A light year is about ...