Scientists uncover 70-million-year old dinosaur nest

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.

Doomsday comet' to pass by Earth

Excellent article about the our universe
Source: Yahoo 7 News
Space.com
October 15, 2011, 7:52 am

The moment long feared by conspiracy theorists is nearly upon us: The "doomsday comet" Elenin will make its closest approach to Earth on Oct. 16.

Or what's left of it will, anyway.

Comet Elenin started breaking up in August after being blasted by a huge solar storm, and a close pass by the sun on Sept 10 apparently finished it off, astronomers say.

So what will cruise within 35.4 million kilometers of our planet Sunday is likely to be a stream of debris rather than a completely intact comet.

And the leftovers of Elenin won't return for 12,000 years, astronomers say.

"Folks are having trouble finding it, so I think it's probably dead and gone," said astronomer Don Yeomans of the Near-Earth Object Program Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
That means it probably won't present much of a skywatching show on Sunday, scientists have said.

The doomsday comet

Elenin's apparent demise may come as a relief to some folks, since apocalyptic rumors circulating on the Internet portrayed the comet as a major threat to Earth.

One theory claimed Elenin would set off havoc on Earth after aligning with other heavenly bodies, spurring massive earthquakes and tsunamis. Another held that Elenin was not a comet at all, but in fact a rogue planet called Nibiru that would bring about the end times on Earth.

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After all, the comet's name could be taken as a spooky acronym: "Extinction-Level Event: Nibiru Is Nigh."

Those ideas were pure nonsense, Yeomans said.

"Elenin was a second-rate, wimpy little comet that never should have been noted for anything, really," he told SPACE.com. "It was not even a bright one."

Elenin's remains will not be the only objects about to make their closest pass of Earth. One day after the Elenin flyby, the small asteroid 2009 TM8 will zip close by. Like Elenin, it poses no risk of striking our home planet.

Asteroid 2009 TM8 is about 6.4 meters wide and the size of a schoolbus. It will come within 212,000 miles of Earth – just inside the orbit of the moon – when it zips by on Monday morning (Oct. 17).
Say goodbye to Elenin

Elenin was named after its discoverer, Russian amateur astronomer Leonid Elenin, who spotted it in December 2010. Before the icy wanderer broke up, its nucleus was likely 2 to 3 miles (3 to 5 km) in diameter, scientists say.

Amazing space photos. Photo: Getty Images

Elenin never posed any threat to life on Earth, Yeomans said. It was far too small to exert any appreciable influence on our planet unless it managed to hit us.

"Just driving to work every day in my subcompact car is going to have far more of a gravitational effect on Earth than this comet ever will," Yeomans said.

Elenin's supposed connection to earthquakes was just a correlation, and a weak one at that, he added. Relatively strong earthquakes occur every day somewhere on Earth, so it's easy — but not statistically valid — to blame some of them on the comet's changing position.

Yeomans views the frenzy over Elenin as a product of the Internet age, which allows loud and often uninformed voices to drown out the rather more prosaic results that scientists publish in peer-reviewed journals.

"It's a snowball effect on the Web," Yeomans said. "You get one or two folks who make an outrageous claim, and a bunch of others pile on. Some folks are actually making a living this way."
Elenin's crumbs will soon leave Earth in the rear-view mirror, speeding out on a long journey to the outer solar system. But Yeomans doesn't think the departure will keep the conspiracy theorists down for long.

"It's time to move on to the next armageddon," he said.

You can follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter: @michaeldwall. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

'Small chance' satellite may hit Australia

Source: yahoo 7 NewsBy Matthew Sadler, AAP
September 23, 2011, 5:17 pm

Australians may want to keep an eye on the sky this weekend with space junk set to crash back to Earth in the next 24 hours.

Scientists say there is a small chance debris from a satellite due to crash to Earth this weekend could land in Australia.

NASA's Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS), which weighs more than five tonnes, is expected to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere at 1058 AEST on Saturday.

The US-based Centre for Orbital and Re-entry Debris Studies estimates that re-entry could occur up to seven hours before or after this time.
The satellite's flight path includes several passes over Australia.

The Australian Space News website said the satellite poses a negligible threat to life and property on Earth.

"Most of the satellite will burn up on re-entry, with perhaps as many as 26 stronger or harder small pieces surviving to reach the surface," editor Jonathan Nally said in a statement.

"But with the majority of the Earth comprising oceans or uninhabited (or very sparsely populated) remote regions, the chances are overwhelming that any pieces of UARS that survive re-entry will fall harmlessly and never be seen again."

The UARS was launched in September 1991 and was decommissioned in December 2005.
After the satellite's productive days were over, NASA deliberately placed it into an orbit about 200 kilometres lower than its operational orbit.

"This was done to accelerate its eventual demise and means it is re-entering the atmosphere 20 years earlier than it would otherwise have done," explains Mr Nally.

"This was a very responsible thing to do. The longer a spacecraft stays in orbit, the more chance it has of being hit by other orbital debris, leading to a destructive breakup and therefore more bits of debris."

Debris from SkyLab, another satellite which plunged to Earth, was scattered over parts of Western Australia in 1979. Skylab weighed about 77 tonnes, many times more than the UARS.

Dr Alice Gorman of the Department of Archaeology at Flinders University in Adelaide said the re-entry of the UARS brings back memories of Skylab 32 years ago.

"There is the same exaggeration of the hazard through the media, public anxiety as the advance warning allows for speculation, and a lack of understanding of what the risks actually are," Dr Gorman said in a statement.

"Should it land in Australia, we might expect the same rush for souvenirs as we saw with Skylab, as anything that has been in space has a special meaning on Earth."