Articles for Grade 3

"Comedian," a conceptual artwork featuring a banana duct-taped to a wall, fetched an astounding $6.2 million at a Sotheby’s auction on November 20, 2024. Bidding began at $800,000 and quickly surged to $4 million and then $5.2 million, plus $1 million in auction fees. The final price surpassed the $1.2 million pre-auction estimate for the artwork....

A rocket built by students at the University of Southern California (USC) Rocket Propulsion Lab (RPL) has shattered a 20-year record. Aftershock II, launched from Nevada's Black Rock Desert on October 20, 2024, reached an altitude of 470,000 feet (143.3 km). This was 90,000 feet (27.4 km) higher than the previous amateur rocket altitude record of 380,000 feet (115.8 km). It was set by the Civilian Space eXploration Team’s GoFast rocket in 2004....

With Christmas just around the corner, your neighborhood is likely aglow with beautiful lights. But those displays pale in comparison to nature's dazzling light show — the Geminids. Nicknamed the "900-pound gorilla of meteor showers" by NASA, the Geminids outshine others with dust streams that are 5 to 500 times more massive. The "shooting stars" are also easier to spot because they travel through the skies at about 22 miles (35 km) per second. This is about half the speed of the Perseid meteors, which zip by at about 37 miles (60 km) per second every year in August....

On September 21, 2024, Tara Dower set a new speed record on the Appalachian Trail (AT) in the Eastern United States. The 31-year-old American ultrarunner completed the 2,189-mile (3,522 km) trail, which runs from Georgia to Maine, in an incredible 40 days, 18 hours, and 5 minutes. Before Dower’s trek, the record was held by Karel Sabbe. It took the Belgian runner 41 days, 7 hours, and 38 minutes, or about 13 hours more, to finish the trail in 2018....

LignoSat, the world’s first satellite made mostly from wood, reached the International Space Station (ISS) aboard a SpaceX cargo capsule on November 5, 2024. The palm-sized satellite, named after the Latin word for “wood," will be launched from the ISS into Earth’s orbit later this month. Its mission is to determine if wood can withstand the harsh conditions of space. If successful, LignoSat could pave the way for more environmentally friendly spacecraft designs....

An estimated 46 million unlucky turkeys will be the centerpiece of Thanksgiving dinner tables across the US on November 28, 2024. However, Peach and Blossom, two gorgeous white toms from Minnesota, will not be among them....

In January 2019, Adam Staples and his friends traveled to Chew Valley in Somerset, England, to test a new metal detector. While exploring a farmer's field, the device found a trove of silver coins buried in the soil. Staples, an auctioneer specializing in ancient coins, immediately knew they had found something extraordinary....

Over the years, astronomers have managed to capture a few images of stars in galaxies beyond Earth. However, these images have always appeared as mere points of light, even when seen through powerful telescopes. Now, thanks to the Very Large Telescope (VLT), scientists have captured the first close-up image of a massive star located a staggering 160,000 light-years from Earth....

Thanksgiving, celebrated annually on the fourth Thursday of November, is one of the most anticipated holidays in the United States. The tradition dates back to a harvest feast shared by early European settlers and Native Americans in 1621. The holiday, which will be observed on November 28 this year, is centered around delicious food and various fun traditions. Here is a brief history of how some of these customs began....