China has quietly issued its first 2025 rare earth mining and smelting quotas without the typical public statement, sources with knowledge of the matter said this week, another sign of Beijing tightening its control over the crucial sector.

Mount Thor, also known as Thor Peak, is a mountain in Nunavut, Canada with the largest vertical drop in the world — a terrifying escarpment with an average overhang of 15 degrees from vertical.

Rare earth and critical minerals are essential to powering today's modern and digital world, as well as the U.S. military advanced aircraft and warships

The space rock came as close as within 4.15 million miles from our planet, according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

A planning appeal has been thrown out after Google Earth satellite images were used to disprove claims by the company making the application. RCR Limited said the former gasworks site they had taken over in Innerleithen about three years ago had been used as storage for more than 30 years.

"We found that hundreds of exoplanets are larger than they appear, and that shifts our understanding of exoplanets on a large scale," University of California, Irvine researcher and team leader Te Han said in a statement. "This means we may have actually found fewer Earth-like planets so far than we thought."

Netflix announced Thursday that Freida Pinto will lead an adaptation of "Unaccustomed Earth." The series is based on the Jhumpa Lahiri short story collection.