Excellent old dinosaur discover
Yahoo!7
November 19, 2011, 9:55 am
Nest full of baby dinosaurs found. Photo: Discovery News
Scientists have uncovered a 70-million-year old nest filled with 15 baby dinosaurs in Mongolia, Discovery News has reported.
The round nest contains at least 10 complete fossil sets and measures 2.3 feet in diameter, researchers have said.
The researchers conclude that all the 15 dinosaurs show juvenile characteristics including short snouts, large eyes, and no prominent horns and large frills associated with adults of this species.
The babies were identified as the Protoceratops andrewsi, which were four-legged herbivores.
Researchers say the find provides unique insights in to the parental behaviour of the adult dinosaurs and reveals that the babies were kept in the nest and taken care of before they were big enough.
According to Live Science, researcher David Fastovsky, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Rhode Island, said, "It's quite striking that there are 15 juvenile Protoceratops here - that seems like a lot to care for.”
“But they were living in a harsh environment, so perhaps mortality rates were high. The evidence suggests they may have been overrun by migrating dunes during a sandstorm,” he adds.
Discovery reported the nest and the fossils of the babies are currently housed at the Paleontological Center of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences, Ulan Baatar, Mongolia.
Spectacular Solar Fire Show from Sun
Source: yahoo 7 News
Space.com
November 6, 2011, 10:55 am
Yahoo!7 Technology News
The Sun has unleashed one of the most powerful storms ever, triggering
massive solar flares.
Solar flare. Photo: space.com
A powerful solar flare that erupted on Nov 3 from a huge blemish on the sun's surface has been classified as an X1.9 flare, ranking it in among the most powerful types of storms from our star can unleash.
The flare originated in a humongous sunspot that was sighted earlier this week, which ranks as one of the largest sunspots seen in years.
The flare "triggered some disruption to radio communications on Earth beginning about 45 minutes later," NASA officials wrote in a statement. "Scientists are continuing to watch this active region as it could well produce additional solar activity as it passes across the front of the sun."
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory and twin Stereo sun-watching spacecraft snapped photos and video of the huge solar flare during solar storm.
A flare is a powerful release of energy that brightens the sun, and is often associated with an area of increased magnetic activity on the solar surface. This magnetic activity can also inhibit the flow of heat to the surface in a process called convection, creating darkened areas on the face of the sun called sunspots.
The huge active region on the sun right now, called AR11339, is about 80,000 km long, several times wider than the Earth.
"This large and complex active region just rotated onto the disk and we will watch it for the next 10 days," astronomers with NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory satellite wrote in an update.
Later on the same day as the flare, in another area of the sun, a burst of charged particles called a coronal mass ejection released from the surface.
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This eruption came from the back side of the sun and is headed toward the planet Venus, so should not pose any risk to Earth.
Because NASA has a suite of spacecraft observing the sun at all times from many directions, the agency was able to observe the coronal mass ejection as well as the solar flare.
Scientists say we probably haven't seen the last of activity from this dynamic region of the sun.
"The large, bright active region remains potent," officials from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). "Odds are good there's more to come."
And recent events are just part of a larger ramping up of action on the sun lately, as our star moves toward the peak of activity in its 11-year cycle around 2013.
This Tuesday a huge asteroid will pass close to Earth
Source: Yahoo 7 News
Irene Klotz, Reuters
Updated November 5, 2011, 8:56 am
Yahoo!7 Technology News
Close
encounter
A space rock bigger than an aircraft carrier is set to get as close to the
Earth as the moon in the next two days.
Strange planet blacker than coal
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla (Reuters) - A huge asteroid will pass closer to Earth than the moon Tuesday, giving scientists a rare chance for study without having to go through the time and expense of launching a probe, officials said.
Earth's close encounter with Asteroid 2005 YU 55 will occur at 6:28 p.m. EST (2328 GMT) Tuesday, as the space rock sails about 201,000 miles from the planet.
"It is the first time since 1976 that an object of this size has passed this closely to the Earth. It gives us a great -- and rare -- chance to study a near-Earth object like this," astronomer Scott Fisher, a program director with the National Science Foundation, said Thursday during a Web chat with reporters.
The orbit and position of the asteroid, which is about 1,312 feet in diameter, is well known, added senior research scientist Don Yeomans, with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
"There is no chance that this object will collide with the Earth or moon," Yeomans said.
Thousands of amateur and professional astronomers are expected to track YU 55's approach, which will be visible from the planet's northern hemisphere. It will be too dim to be seen with the naked eye, however, and it will be moving too fast for viewing by the Hubble Space Telescope.
"The best time to observe it would be in the early evening on November 8 from the East Coast of the United States," Yeomans said. "It is going to be very faint, even at its closest approach. You will need a decent-sized telescope to be able to actually see the object as it flies by."
Scientists suspect YU 55 has been visiting Earth for thousands of years, but because gravitational tugs from the planets occasionally tweak its path, they cannot tell for sure how long the asteroid has been in its present orbit.
"These sorts of events have been happening for most of the lifetime of the Earth, about 4.5 billion years," Fisher said.
Computer models showing the asteroid's path for the next 100 years show there is no chance it will hit Earth during that time, added Yeomans.
"We do not think that it will ever impact the Earth or moon (but) we only have its orbit calculated for the next 100 years," he said.
Previous studies show the asteroid, which is blacker than charcoal, is what is called a C-type asteroid that is likely made of carbon-based materials and some silicate rock.
More information about its composition and structure are expected from radar images and chemical studies of its light as the asteroid passes by the planet.
"I've read that we will be able to see details down to a size of about 15 feet across on the surface of the asteroid," Fisher said.
NASA is working on a mission to return soil samples from an asteroid known as 1999 RQ36 in 2020, followed by a human mission to another asteroid in the mid-2020s.
Japan also plans to launch an asteroid sample return mission in 2018.
(Corrects time element in paragraph 3)
(Editing by Tom Brown and Philip Barbara
Nest full of baby dinosaurs found. Photo: Discovery News
