The DART Hits The Bullseye

Our space neighborhood is filled with comets, meteors, asteroids, and other random bits of rocky flotsam and jetsam, any one of which could come plummeting through the Earth’s atmosphere and slam into our planet. Over Earth’s long history, many objects have done precisely that. That reality is of no small concern, because if the object is large enough, the impact could have catastrophic, climate-altering consequences. Some scientists theorize, for example, that the extinction of the dinosaurs occurred because of the after-effects of a gigantic and devastating meteor strike that occurred 65 million years ago.

The fact that humans haven’t had to deal with a similar random, collision-caused disaster has been the product of sheer dumb luck–until now. Thanks to the scientists and engineers at NASA, and the successful test on Monday of a suicidal spacecraft called the Double Asteroid Rendezvous Test (“DART”) probe, we’ve finally got a fighting chance.

The DART mission sought to show that the paths of killer asteroids could be deflected away from Earth by being rammed by a spacecraft. The target of the mission, at a distance about 7 million miles from our planet, was an asteroid called Dimorphos, and the goal was to change its orbit around a larger asteroid called Didymos. The DART probe, which was about the size of a golf cart and weighed 1,320 pounds, slammed into Dimorphos at a brisk 14,000 miles per hour rate, with the goal of nudging the asteroid into a speedier orbit around Didymos. Happily, the DART probe hit the Dimorphos bullseye, and as it approached it provided a continuous stream of photos, like the one above, that made the asteroid target look like a rock-studded egg in space. The ultimate crash of the DART into the target also was captured by many Earth-based telescopes. You can see the video of the collision taken from one telescope here.

So, did the ultimate sacrifice willingly undertaken by the DART probe successfully change the orbit of Didymos, as we hhope? We don’t know for sure, yet, but we’ll find out as the asteroid is monitored, and its orbit path is measured, over the next few months. But just being able to navigate a golf cart-sized spacecraft moving at 14,000 miles an hour into a moving asteroid seven million miles away is a pretty good start to developing a planetary defense system that will protect our species, and other inhabitants of planet Earth, from the ravages of killer asteroids.

An Old Crab

From time to time–typically after I’ve made a curmudgeonly comment about some regrettable modern development–I’ve been accused of being an “old crab.” A recently announced scientific discovery allows me to respond that if such naysayers want to see a really old crab, they need look no farther than the ancient crab, pictured above, that was discovered trapped in amber.

It’s an old crab, for sure. In fact, it’s 100 million years old, which means that this little guy was scuttling around during the Cretaceous period, while dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, when he had the misfortune of becoming trapped in tree resin that later became amber. The crab, called Cretapsara athanata, is the oldest modern-looking crab and the most complete fossil crab ever discovered.

The remarkable specimen is so complete that scientists could examine the crab’s entire body, including delicate tissues, like the antennae and mouthparts lined with fine hairs. And when they examined the crab, researchers got a surprise: they discovered the animal also had gills, but no lungs. That indicates that Cretapsara athanata lived an aquatic or semi-aquatic life, which makes the specimen even rarer, because most fossilized crabs are land or tree-dwelling crabs.

And if you are ever called an “old crab,” bear in mind that there are many things to admire about crabs as a species. As the article linked above points out: “True crabs, or Brachyura, are an iconic group of crustaceans whose remarkable diversity of forms, species richness, and economic importance have inspired celebrations and festivals worldwide. They’ve even earned a special role in the pantheon of social media. True crabs are found all around the world, from the depths of the oceans, to coral reefs, beaches, rivers, caves, and even in trees as true crabs are among the few animal groups that have conquered land and freshwater multiple times.”

So there!

Fern Fun

When we first started coming to Maine, I was amazed to find that it had fern-filled forests (try saying that three times fast).  I had always associated ferns with warm, wet climates a lot closer to the equator, but that was clearly wrong.  Ferns thrive throughout Maine and are found pretty much everywhere — including outcroppings of ferns at multiple locations in our down yard, one of which is shown in this photo.

Ferns are part of a plant group called Pteridophytes, which is one of the oldest plant groups in the world.  They first emerged about 300 million years ago, which is why you often see colossal ferns depicted in illustrations of dinosaurs.  Ferns thrived during the warm, wet age of the dinosaurs, but they are also suited to wetter places like Maine because moisture is essential to their reproductive process.  Having no flowers or pollen for helpful bees to spread, they depend on the exchange of spores to reproduce.  There are lots of different species of ferns in Maine, including several clearly different varieties. with different kinds of fronds, in our yard.  I think our largest plants, like the ones shown in the photo, are “ostrich ferns,” which emerge as little fiddleheads, but distinguishing between the species requires an expertise and attention to subtle differences that I just don’t have. 

I like the look of ferns and am happy to have them in our yard.  They grow in clumps that wave lazily in the breeze blowing in from the harbor, and present with lots of different shades of green depending on the angle of the sunlight.  They’re a lot more attractive than the weeds that would be growing there otherwise, and they are hardy plants that really don’t require much care after they have taken root.  I’m trying to help a little patch that has started up in one rocky, out of the way part of the yard, and basically I’m just going to water it and circle it with stones to protect it from the weedwhacker. 

I also like ferns because deer apparently don’t care for them.  The ever-hungry neighborhood deer might gnaw the tops off every flower that is ready to bloom, but they leave the ferns alone.  Ferns . . . those, I think I can safely grow.

The Day The Dinosaurs Died

You’ve probably read about how a massive asteroid strike ended the era of the dinosaurs and caused their ultimate mass extinction.  The geological evidence indicates that, 66 million years ago, the asteroid hit on the Yucatan peninsula of modern Mexico and produced massive earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tidal waves, and forest fires.  The strike threw up a dense plume of dust and debris that turned the world dark and wiped out 99 percent of life on Earth.  Thanks to that asteroid strike, the Cretaceous period ended with a bang and the way was clear for mammals — and human beings — to take the dinosaurs’ place at the top of the food chain.

What was it like on the day, 66 million years ago, when the asteroid struck the Earth with such terrible force?  Robert DePalma, a doctoral student at the University of Kansas, has found compelling evidence of what happened on that momentous day, and this week he published his findings in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  In 2012, looking at a site called Tanis, in the Hell Creek geological formation in North Dakota, DePalma found layers of perfectly preserved animals and fish fossils at the precise boundary between the Cretaceous period and the Tertiary period that followed it — the very day when the asteroid struck the Yucatan.

The geological evidence shows that the asteroid strike created a magnitude 10 or 11 earthquake that generated seismic waves that reached out thousands of miles.  In prehistoric North Dakota, which like much of the North American continent was covered by an inland sea, the seismic waves produced a water surge that threw fish onto shores to suffocate — producing the layers of fish and animals that DePalma found.  At the same time, molten material was hurled into the atmosphere.  In the geological formation, DePalma found bone, teeth, and hatchling remains of many dinosaur groups, including an intact dinosaur egg complete with embryo — indicating that the dinosaurs survived that fateful day, although their ultimate day of reckoning was coming.

In an article in the New Yorker, DePalma describes his find as “like finding the Holy Grail clutched in the bony fingers of Jimmy Hoffa, sitting on top of the Lost Ark.”  Thanks to him, we now know a lot more about the day that the ground buckled and snapped, the waters surged, the skies were lit with fire, and the world changed forever.

Discovering The Biggest Dinosaur Ever

In Argentina, paleontologists recently uncovered the fossilized bones of what they believe to be the largest dinosaur species ever.  The discovery of the remains of the colossal creature once again pushes the envelope of estimates of just how large land animals could possibly become.

The new species, which has not yet been named, was a colossal beast.  Its thigh bone alone is longer than an adult human being, and altogether it was estimated to measure 65 feet in height and 140 feet in length. The animal was a plant-eater and a type of sauropod — dinosaurs with long necks and long tails that those of us who grew up in the ’60s learned to call a “brontosaurus,” the “thunder lizard” species of dinosaur that now is believed to have never actually existed –– except as the quarry vehicle used by Fred Flintstone and served in rib form at the Bedrock drive-in.   (That’s science for you.)

The newly discovered dinosaur is thought to have weighed 77 tons, as much as 14 fully grown African elephants.  In short, the largest land animals of the modern world, which seem so large and ponderous to us, would have been dwarfed by this gigantic dinosaur.  Imagine standing near a creature that was as tall as a seven-story building and could shake the ground with each step!  It gives an entirely new plausibility to Godzilla movies.

Richard And The “Chicken From Hell”

Scientists have discovered and properly named a new dinosaur species. Its technical name is Anzu wyliei, but it’s been commonly described on the news as the “chicken from hell.”

Of course, it’s not like any chicken we’ll ever see — fortunately. This creature weighed 500 pounds, had a crested skull, long beak, and powerful claws, and lived during the late Cretaceous period at the same time that Tyrannosaurus Rex roamed the planet. Like all of the late dinosaurs, the “chicken from hell” went extinct after a meteorite struck the Earth and changed the climate in which dinosaurs had thrived.

Richard’s connection with the “chicken from hell” is that paleontologists from the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh played an integral role in the discovery of Anzu wyliei. Richard’s interesting Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story about their discovery is available here.

The Awesome Power Of Dinosaur Flatulence

Any regular reader knows that the Webner House blog rigidly adheres to the highest standards of propriety and refinement.  Occasionally, however, exceptions must be made when a rippingly good fart story surfaces.

Consider the recent scholarly article in the academic journal Current Biology, in which the authors attempted to determine the magnitude and climatological effect of dinosaur farts.  The authors, from universities in England and Scotland, calculated that dinosaurs produced an eye-watering 520 million tons of gas annually — enough, they believe, to help cause the warm climate that existed 150 million years ago, because the dinosaur blasts consisted largely of methane, one of the greenhouse gases.  Curiously, the article makes no effort to determine the effect of the dinosaurs’ colossal flatulence on odor conditions during the Mesozoic Era or helps to explain why the Tyrannosaurus Rex was always so ill-tempered.

The dinosaurs’ astonishing gas production is especially impressive when you consider that they cut the cheese without the assistance of White Castle hamburgers, nachos, or beer.  In any event, the findings in the study also lend credence to the theory that dinosaurs belonged to fraternities, were possessed of a sophomoric sense of humor, and first coined the comment “he who smelt it, dealt it.”

A Distant Ancestor

They’ve discovered a fossil in China of what appears to be an ancestor of the Tyrannosaurus Rex — except this creature lived 60 million years earlier and was 90 times smaller. It features the same massive, dagger-toothed skull, the same small “arms,” and the same apparently acute sense of smell. Even though it was smaller than a T Rex, you still wouldn’t want to meet it in a dark alley — it weighed about 150 pounds and looks like it could rips a normal-sized human to shreds in short order.

The BBC story on the find is interesting, although their depiction of what the dinosaur looked like it a bit unnerving. Tufted with a brown mane, it looks like a crazed horse on steroids.

Dinoskin

This article reports on the fascinating recent discovery of a dinosaur fossil with preserved soft tissue sufficient to demonstrate the structure of dinosaur skin.  The  finding gives experts a bit more information about how dinosaurs really looked.   This kind of story reflects the wonderful inquisitiveness of scientists.  We obviously don’t need to know exactly how dinosaurs looked, but it sure would be interesting to discover more data about that topic. 

I confess to being a bit sorry that, as the article indicates, the skin structure evidence cuts against the recent theory that dinosaurs had feathers.  My mental image of feathered dinosaurs had been the “Tyrannasaurus Rex chasing the jeep” scene from Jurassic Park — except that that terrifying T Rex was festooned with brightly colored feathers, like some ancient Aztec chieftain.