An international panel of experts have come to the conclusion that a space impact was responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs.

They reached the consensus after conducting the most wide-ranging analysis yet of the evidence.
Writing in Science journal, they rule out alternative theories such as large-scale volcanism

The analysis has been discussed at the 41st Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) in the US.A panel of 41 international experts reviewed 20 years’ worth of research to determine the cause of the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) mass extinction, around 65 million years ago.

The extinction wiped out more than half of all species on the planet, including the dinosaurs, bird-like pterosaurs and large marine reptiles, clearing the way for mammals to become the dominant species on Earth.

Their review of the evidence shows that the extinction was caused by a massive asteroid or comet smashing into Earth at Chicxulub on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.

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An Italian art collector has found a tooth, thumb and finger which belonged to Galileo Galilei who died in the 17th century.

The body parts, along with another finger and a vertebrae, were cut from Galileo’s corpse by scientists and historians during a burial ceremony held 95 years after his death in 1642.

Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti, a science historian who cut away the parts and wrote about the ceremony, “confessed he had found it hard to resist the temptation to take away the skull which had housed such extraordinary genius,” the museum said.

he newly-found relics had passed from one collector to another until they went missing in 1905. The remaining finger and the vertebrae have been conserved since 1737 in a mummified state in museums in Florence and Padua.

All the organic material extracted from the corpse has therefore now been identified and is conserved in responsible hands,” the museum said in a statement.

On the basis of considerable historical documentation, there are no doubts about the authenticity of the items,” it added.

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A scarf worn by Amelia Earhart will be making a journey into orbit with the astronaut grandson of her personal photographer.

Earhart’s scarf accompanying Bresnik on STS-129 is on loan from the Museum of Women Pilots in Oklahoma City, which displays the history of the Ninety-Nines, the international organization of female aviators founded in 1929 by 99 women pilots led by Earhart as president.

“It has the Ninety-Nines’ symbol, the intertwined nines in the center of it,” described Carolyn Smith, chairman of the Ninety-Nines’ Board of Trustees for the museum, of the red and white scarf.

The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum has scanned much of their 1,300 flight-related posters, from ballooning to space travel, dating back to 1827. Click here to view the collection, and click here to read about the process of scanning them.

This marks the first time the poster collection, which includes graphic art published from as early as 1827 up to the twenty-first century, has been accessible to the public as an archive, since the majority of it has remained in storage in Suitland, Maryland. The collection provides a wealth of information related to balloons, early flight, military and commercial aviation, and space flight, documenting aerospace history and technology while providing a window into popular culture. As a student of art history, I found the collection visually engaging and historically significant. As a young museum professional, I gained experience physically working with the objects, recording and organizing information, photographing, identifying methods used to print the posters, and even had a lot of fun!

Drawings of the Moon made 400 years ago are part of a new exhibition on the history of astronomy at the London Science Museum.

The moon maps, the first ever made from telescope observations, were the work of the English astronomer Thomas Harriot.

The exhibition spans many cultures from the 10th to 21st centuries and looks at the various ways humankind has studied the heavens.