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New SpaceTime out Friday

SpaceTime 20250613 Series 28 Episode 71

Galaxy clusters on a collision course

Astronomers have captured a rare cosmic event in which two massive galaxy clusters have which have already collided with each other are now poised to head back for another swipe.

NASA switches to backup systems on Psyche

Engineers with NASA’s Psyche mission have switched to a backup fuel line aboard the spacecraft following a decrease in fuel pressure detected in the spacecraft’s main propulsion system.

Discovery of a new type of atomic nucleus

For the first time in more than thirty years, the heaviest nucleus decaying through proton emission has been measured.

The Science Report

Latest climate report shows unprecedented ocean warming across the south Pacific.

How immigration has changed the genetic make up of native Papua New Guinea communities.

How having a mix of tea, berries, apples, oranges, and grapes lowers chronic disease and early death.

Skeptics guide to Catfish, phishing and other online predators

SpaceTime covers the latest news in astronomy & space sciences.

The show is available every Monday, Wednesday and Friday through your favourite podcast download provider or from www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com

SpaceTime is also broadcast through the National Science Foundation on Science Zone Radio and on both i-heart Radio and Tune-In Radio.

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SpaceTime -- A brief history

SpaceTime is Australia’s most popular and respected astronomy and space science news program – averaging over two million downloads every year. We’re also number five in the United States.  The show reports on the latest stories and discoveries making news in astronomy, space flight, and science.  SpaceTime features weekly interviews with leading Australian scientists about their research.  The show began life in 1995 as ‘StarStuff’ on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC) NewsRadio network.  Award winning investigative reporter Stuart Gary created the program during more than fifteen years as NewsRadio’s evening anchor and Science Editor.  Gary’s always loved science. He was the dorky school kid who spent his weekends at the Australian Museum. Gary studied astronomy at university and was invited to undertake a PHD in astrophysics, but instead focused on a career in journalism and radio broadcasting. His radio career stretches back some 34 years including 26 at the ABC. Gary’s first gigs were spent as an announcer and music DJ in commercial radio, before becoming a journalist, and eventually joining ABC News and Current Affairs. He was part of the team that set up ABC NewsRadio and became one of its first on air presenters. When asked to put his science background to use, Gary was appointed Science Editor and quickly developed the StarStuff Astronomy shgw, which he wrote, produced, and hosted. The program proved extremely popular, consistently achieving 9 per cent of the national Australian radio audience -- based on the ABC’s Nielsen ratings survey figures for the five major Australian metro markets: Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth. That compares to the ABC’s overall radio listenership of 5.6 per cent. The StarStuff podcast was published on line by ABC Science -- achieving over 1.3 million downloads annually.  However, after some 20 years, the show finally wrapped up in December 2015 following ABC funding cuts, and a redirection of available finances to increase sports and horse racing coverage.  Rather than continue with the ABC, Gary resigned so that he could keep the show going independently.  StarStuff was rebranded as “SpaceTime”, with the first episode broadcast in February 2016.  Over the years, SpaceTime has grown, more than doubling its former ABC audience numbers and expanding to include new segments such as the Science Report -- which provides a wrap of general science news, weekly skeptical science features, special reports looking at the latest computer and technology news, and Skywatch – which provides a monthly guide to the night skies. The show is published three times a week (every Monday, Wednesday and Friday) and it’s available from the United States National Science Foundation on Science Zone Radio, and through both i-heart Radio and Tune-In Radio.

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The splat game.

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Dromiceiomimus brevitertius

A male in breeding plumage takes shelter from the sleet of a spring coldsnap

The second of my Horseshoe Canyon series. I didn't have any particular knowledge of ornithomimids before this piece and I think I might actually know less now that I've completed it. Specifically, this taxon in particular has been problematic for nearly it's entire existence. Originally it was named as a new species of Struthiomimus, and later given it's own genus by Russell in his review of the ornithomimids of Alberta. One of his chief characters for distinguishing this taxon was the ratio of tibia to femur length. This has proven very problematic as this ratio can be affected by individual variation and/or growth stage and subsequently Dromiceiomimus has been subsumed into Ornithomimus by various authors. Though the issue of whether it's synonymous with O. edmontonicus or a valid species within Ornithomimus is not agreed upon even by them. The most recent publication I could find was the Macdonald and Currie (2019) description of a near complete specimen. Therein they run a series of tests to see if the limb ratio is even a valid character, and to my surprise it seems to be so. Of the tested taxa (Dromiceiomimus, Ornithomimus, Struthiomimus, and Gallimimus) all kept a consistent ratio of tibia/femur length across absolute sizes, and therefore the ratio is independent of growth stage at least, suggesting that it could be a diagnostic character (Gallimimus is a small outlier, it had a slight negative allometry, the tibia shortened in comparison to the femur as the specimens got bigger). Combining this with subtle features of the hand and claws they reasoned that Dromiceiomimus was distinct at both the specific and generic levels.

As for depicting it, my best sources were the photos of the fossil from Macdonald and Currie (2018), the skeletal diagrams and thigh muscle reconstructions provided in Russel (1972), the "Ornithomimus brevitertius" skeleton in Paul (1989), and the image of the holotype pelvic girdle provided in Parks (1926). The integument of Ornithomimus has been fossilized in a couple specimens described in Zelenitsky et. al. (2012) and van der Reest, Wolfe, & Currie (2015). given the taxonomic issues, I figured the Ornithomimus integument would be appropriate. What surprised me about the integument was the wings. Specimen TMP 1995.110.1 preserves on its ulna carbonized traces of feather shafts. These traces disappear towards both the proximal and distal ends, meaning that the wing (pennibrachium of their terminology) would have been limited to the forearm and wouldn't continue onto the hand and 2nd finger, nor up to the shoulder as is the case in more derived maniraptors. It feels like a cardinal sin to depict dinosaur wings that way, but that's what the evidence shows for Ornithomimus at least.

The composition, colors, and pose were all inspired by Poodonkis (and if you get the reference maybe take something for your back pain). My challenge was to make him believably pink and spotted and to have him be 'snowed in.' I eventually settled on the idea that the bright pink would be male breeding plumage and since bullfinch, pine grosbeak, and pink headed fruit doves manage the color without filtering crustaceans like flamingoes or spoonbills I figured it could be justified. The spots could be either camouflage like a northern flicker or display like a peacock pheasant, so I done a little of both. The 'snowed in' was tougher, luckily there have been some determinations of paleoclimate for the Horseshoe Canyon Formation, most relevant here are the paleosol samples of Quinney et. al. (2013). Most of the specimens referred to Dromiceiomimus are from the Tolman Member of the formation, which was deposited in a cooler and drier interval. The mean annual temperature and precipitation determined by Quinney et. al. was comparable to those of modern Belgium and Luxembourg, which gives us a rough ballpark to play in. Close enough that I think a cold spring could reasonably produce a sleet storm, not quite a snow-in but close enough for the composition.

References:

Macdonald, I., Currie, P. J. (2018) Description of a partial Dromiceiomimus (Dinosauria: Theropoda) skeleton with comments on the validity of the genus. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 56: pg. 129-157. doi.org/10.1139/cjes-2018-0162

Russell, D. A. (1972) Ostrich Dinosaurs from the Late Cretaceous of Western Canada. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 9: pg. 375-402.

Paul, G. S. (1989) Predatory Dinosaurs of the World, Touchstone Simon & Schuster. pg. 391

Parks, W. A. (1926) Struthiomimus brevetertius - A new species of dinosaur from the Edmonton Formation of Alberta. Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, series 3. 20(4), 65-70 (digitized, pg. 949-955)

Zelenitsky, D. K., et. al. (2012) Feathered Non-Avian Dinosaurs from North America Provide Insight into Wing Origins. Science 338: pg. 510-514. DOI: 10.1126/science.1225376

van der Reest, A. J., Wolfe, A. P., Currie, P. J. (2015) A densely feathered ornithomimid (Dinosauria: Theropoda) from the Upper Cretaceous Dinosaur Park Formation, Alberta, Canada. Cretaceous Research 58: pg. 108-117. doi.org/10.1016/j.cretres.2015.10.004

Quinney, A. et. al. (2013) Palaeoenvironmental and palaeoclimatic reconstruction of the Upper Cretaceous (late Campanian-early Maastrichtian) Horseshoe Canyon Formation, Alberta, Canada. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 371: pg. 26-44. doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2012.12.009

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Orion

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Say something about this Fluorite from the famous Yaogangxian Mine in China. Photo ©️ Yang_nature_minerals

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Diffraction Spikes: When Stars Look Like Crosses

Credits: TLS, WFPC2, HST, NASA

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M51: The Whirlpool Galaxy

Credits: Lowell Observatory, U. Alabama

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UPDATE: Reports of at least 4 buildings hit in the latest Iranian regime missile attacks on central Israel.

UPDATE: Both the Houthis from Yemen and the Iranian regime are currently attacking Israel.

UPDATE: Reports of numerous impact sites, with at least 12  people injured across various sites.

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In the name of open science, the multinational scientific collaboration COSMOS on Thursday released the data behind the largest map of the universe. Called the COSMOS-Web field, the project, built with data collected by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), consists of all the imaging and a catalog of nearly 800,000 galaxies spanning nearly all of cosmic time. And it's been challenging existing notions of the infant universe.

Continue Reading.

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CCTV footage showing several of the ballistic missile impacts tonight in Tel-Aviv, following launches from both Iran and Yemen.

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June 14, 1963: Valery Bykovsky becomes the ninth person to orbit the Earth onboard Vostok 5

Vostok 5, callsign Yastreb ("Hawk"), was a joint flight with Valentina Tereshkova's Vostok 6 and set a human endurance record of five days in space. During his 82 orbits, Bykovsky also photographed Earth and documented the growth of peas in microgravity.

Read more about the first Soviet cosmonauts here!

image source: Roscosmos

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