On Feb. 20, 1824, English naturalist and theologian William Buckland addressed the Geological Society of London, describing an enormous jaw and limb bones unearthed in a slate quarry in the village of Stonesfield near Oxford.
Buckland recognized that these fossils belonged to a huge bygone reptile, and gave it a formal scientific name: Megalosaurus, meaning “great lizard.” With that, the first dinosaur was officially recognized, though the actual word dinosaur would not be coined until the 1840s.
“It was the beginning of our fascination with dinosaurs,” University of Edinburgh paleontologist Steve Brusatte said. “His announcement opened the floodgates and started a fossil rush, and people went out looking for other giant bones in England and beyond.”
In the intervening 200 years, dinosaur science has flourished, providing insight into what these creatures looked like, how they lived, how they evolved and what doomed them. Dinosaurs trod the planet from about 231 million years ago to 66 million years ago during the Mesozoic Era. Their bird descendants remain with us today.
“Our understanding of dinosaurs has changed significantly since the 19th century,” said paleontologist Emma Nicholls of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, home to the Megalosaurus fossils Buckland studied.
“Buckland and other gentlemen naturalists of the early 19th century would be stunned at how much we now know about dinosaurs,” Brusatte added.
Megalosaurus is a case in point. Buckland thought it was a lizard about 66 feet (20 meters) long, walked on four legs and could live on land or in the water. Scientists now know it was not quadrupedal and not a lizard, but belonged to the theropod group comprising meat-eating dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus and Spinosaurus and was about 30 feet (9 meters) long.
“It scampered around on its hind legs, chasing down its prey, using its clawed hands and toothy jaws to subdue its victims,” Brusatte said.
Buckland, like others at the time, did not grasp how long ago dinosaurs lived, believing Earth to be only a few thousand years old. Scientists now know Earth is about 4.5 billion years old. Megalosaurus lived about 165 million years ago.
“It took several decades for geologists to understand that the Earth was truly old, and that life has evolved over vast stretches of time. Dinosaurs and the other fossils being discovered were a huge impetus in this bombshell change in people’s understanding of their place in the world,” Brusatte said.
‘Dinosauria’
English naturalist Richard Owen recognized that fossils found in southern England of Megalosaurus and two other large land-dwelling reptiles, Iguanodon and Hylaeosaurus, formed a common group, calling them “Dinosauria” in an 1841 lecture and a publication the following year.
The subsequent discovery of Hadrosaurus and Dryptosaurus fossils in the U.S. state of New Jersey showed that at least some dinosaurs were bipedal, changing the perception that they had resembled reptilian rhinoceroses. Beginning around the 1870s, the first complete large dinosaur skeletons – first in the American West, then in Belgium and elsewhere – demonstrated the distinctive anatomy and diversity of dinosaurs.
In the 1960s, the identification of the smallish meat-eating dinosaur Deinonychus shook up dinosaur science, helping inaugurate a research period called the “Dinosaur Renaissance.” It showed that dinosaurs could be small and agile. Some were remarkably similar anatomically to early birds like Archaeopteryx, confirming how birds evolved from small, feathered dinosaurs. It also prompted a debate over whether dinosaurs were warm-blooded like birds, contradicting the long-standing conception of them as slow, lumbering and cold-blooded.
“In the decades following that, there was increasing work on dinosaur growth, on the use of CT scans, on analytical methods for reconstruction of evolutionary relationships and of biomechanical function, all helping to create a more dynamic and biological view of dinosaurs as living things,” said University of Maryland paleontologist Thomas Holtz.
Paleontologists put cranial fossils into CT scanners to build digital models of dinosaur brains and ears, gaining better knowledge of dino senses like sight, hearing and smelling. Researchers also now can tell the colour of dinosaurs if their skin or feathers are sufficiently well preserved to retain microscopic melanosome bubbles holding pigment in cells.
More than 2,000 dinosaur species are now known and paleontology is a vibrant, international science. Remarkable fossil finds are being made in places such as China, Argentina, Brazil, South Africa and Mongolia.
“Regarding discoveries about dinosaurs in recent decades, the most important one to my mind is the discovery that at least meat-eating dinosaurs, theropods, had feathers rather than scales and that some had really well-developed feathers on their arms even though they were, for a variety of reasons, incapable of flight,” said paleontologist Hans-Dieter Sues of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington.
“Presumably these feathers, which were often colourful, provided insulation for the body and, in at least some species, were used for display,” Sues added.
The killer asteroid
The extinction of the dinosaurs had long puzzled scientists, with various hypotheses offered, from the plausible to the ridiculous. Some even proposed that the shrew-sized mammals of the time ate up the dinosaur eggs.
In 1980, researchers identified a layer of sediment dating precisely to the end of the dinosaur age containing high concentrations of iridium, an element common in meteorites, indicating a huge space rock had struck Earth. The Chicxulub crater at Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula – 112 miles (180 km) wide – subsequently was identified as the impact site of the asteroid that wiped out three-quarters of Earth’s species, including the dinosaurs.
Had that asteroid missed Earth, would dinosaurs still rule, instead of the mammals – eventually including humans – that inherited a shattered world?
“Almost certainly yes,” Holtz said. “Mammals arose not long after the first dinosaurs, but spent many tens of millions of years in their shadows. Mesozoic mammals were highly successful and diverse, but only at smaller body sizes.”
“The dinosaurs would have had to deal with the eventual drying and cooling of the world, and with it the reduction of the forests and their replacement with grasslands,” Holtz added. “But these changes seem to have been gradual enough that the dinosaurs would have had a chance to evolve adaptations to the new conditions, just as large mammals did.”
Scientists have evaluated the metabolism of dinosaurs using a formula based on body mass, as revealed by the bulk of their thigh bones, and growth rates, as shown by growth rings in fossil bones akin to those in trees. The research suggested dinosaurs were intermediate to today’s warm-blooded and cold-blooded animals.
Scientists have also refined their assessment of the size of various dinosaurs, including the sauropod group that numbered among them the largest land animals in Earth’s history. One 2023 study based on limb bone dimensions crowned Argentinosaurus, which was around 115 feet (35 metres) long, as the heavyweight champion at about 76 metric tons.
Even after two centuries, the research is far from done.
“Outside the realm of new technology, there are still many badlands in various corners of the world which are largely unexplored paleontologically,” Holtz said. “These regions will reveal new species from the age of dinosaurs. There are almost assuredly entire groups of dinosaurs which we currently know nothing about waiting to be discovered.”
(Reporting by Will Dunham in Washington, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
The European Space Agency is fast-tracking a new mission called Ramses, which will fly to near-Earth asteroid 99942 Apophis and join the space rock in 2029 when it comes very close to our planet — closer even than the region where geosynchronous satellites sit.
Ramses is short for Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety and, as its name suggests, is the next phase in humanity’s efforts to learn more about near-Earth asteroids (NEOs) and how we might deflect them should one ever be discovered on a collision course with planet Earth.
In order to launch in time to rendezvous with Apophis in February 2029, scientists at the European Space Agency have been given permission to start planning Ramses even before the multinational space agency officially adopts the mission. The sanctioning and appropriation of funding for the Ramses mission will hopefully take place at ESA’s Ministerial Council meeting (involving representatives from each of ESA’s member states) in November of 2025. To arrive at Apophis in February 2029, launch would have to take place in April 2028, the agency says.
This is a big deal because large asteroids don’t come this close to Earth very often. It is thus scientifically precious that, on April 13, 2029, Apophis will pass within 19,794 miles (31,860 kilometers) of Earth. For comparison, geosynchronous orbit is 22,236 miles (35,786 km) above Earth’s surface. Such close fly-bys by asteroids hundreds of meters across (Apophis is about 1,230 feet, or 375 meters, across) only occur on average once every 5,000 to 10,000 years. Miss this one, and we’ve got a long time to wait for the next.
When Apophis was discovered in 2004, it was for a short time the most dangerous asteroid known, being classified as having the potential to impact with Earth possibly in 2029, 2036, or 2068. Should an asteroid of its size strike Earth, it could gouge out a crater several kilometers across and devastate a country with shock waves, flash heating and earth tremors. If it crashed down in the ocean, it could send a towering tsunami to devastate coastlines in multiple countries.
Over time, as our knowledge of Apophis’ orbit became more refined, however, the risk of impact greatly went down. Radar observations of the asteroid in March of 2021 reduced the uncertainty in Apophis’ orbit from hundreds of kilometers to just a few kilometers, finally removing any lingering worries about an impact — at least for the next 100 years. (Beyond 100 years, asteroid orbits can become too unpredictable to plot with any accuracy, but there’s currently no suggestion that an impact will occur after 100 years.) So, Earth is expected to be perfectly safe in 2029 when Apophis comes through. Still, scientists want to see how Apophis responds by coming so close to Earth and entering our planet’s gravitational field.
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“There is still so much we have yet to learn about asteroids but, until now, we have had to travel deep into the solar system to study them and perform experiments ourselves to interact with their surface,” said Patrick Michel, who is the Director of Research at CNRS at Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur in Nice, France, in a statement. “Nature is bringing one to us and conducting the experiment itself. All we need to do is watch as Apophis is stretched and squeezed by strong tidal forces that may trigger landslides and other disturbances and reveal new material from beneath the surface.”
The Goldstone radar’s imagery of asteroid 99942 Apophis as it made its closest approach to Earth, in March 2021. (Image credit: NASA/JPL–Caltech/NSF/AUI/GBO)
By arriving at Apophis before the asteroid’s close encounter with Earth, and sticking with it throughout the flyby and beyond, Ramses will be in prime position to conduct before-and-after surveys to see how Apophis reacts to Earth. By looking for disturbances Earth’s gravitational tidal forces trigger on the asteroid’s surface, Ramses will be able to learn about Apophis’ internal structure, density, porosity and composition, all of which are characteristics that we would need to first understand before considering how best to deflect a similar asteroid were one ever found to be on a collision course with our world.
Besides assisting in protecting Earth, learning about Apophis will give scientists further insights into how similar asteroids formed in the early solar system, and, in the process, how planets (including Earth) formed out of the same material.
One way we already know Earth will affect Apophis is by changing its orbit. Currently, Apophis is categorized as an Aten-type asteroid, which is what we call the class of near-Earth objects that have a shorter orbit around the sun than Earth does. Apophis currently gets as far as 0.92 astronomical units (137.6 million km, or 85.5 million miles) from the sun. However, our planet will give Apophis a gravitational nudge that will enlarge its orbit to 1.1 astronomical units (164.6 million km, or 102 million miles), such that its orbital period becomes longer than Earth’s.
It will then be classed as an Apollo-type asteroid.
Ramses won’t be alone in tracking Apophis. NASA has repurposed their OSIRIS-REx mission, which returned a sample from another near-Earth asteroid, 101955 Bennu, in 2023. However, the spacecraft, renamed OSIRIS-APEX (Apophis Explorer), won’t arrive at the asteroid until April 23, 2029, ten days after the close encounter with Earth. OSIRIS-APEX will initially perform a flyby of Apophis at a distance of about 2,500 miles (4,000 km) from the object, then return in June that year to settle into orbit around Apophis for an 18-month mission.
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Furthermore, the European Space Agency still plans on launching its Hera spacecraft in October 2024 to follow-up on the DART mission to the double asteroid Didymos and Dimorphos. DART impacted the latter in a test of kinetic impactor capabilities for potentially changing a hazardous asteroid’s orbit around our planet. Hera will survey the binary asteroid system and observe the crater made by DART’s sacrifice to gain a better understanding of Dimorphos’ structure and composition post-impact, so that we can place the results in context.
The more near-Earth asteroids like Dimorphos and Apophis that we study, the greater that context becomes. Perhaps, one day, the understanding that we have gained from these missions will indeed save our planet.
