ATLANTIS WELCOME BACK HOMEofficial counts
Landed:Sunday, May 24, 2009, 11:39 a.m. EDT Landing Site: Edwards Air Force Base Mission Elapsed Time: 12 days, 21 hours, 37 minutes, 9 seconds Official Landing Times Main gear touchdown:11:39:05 a.m. EDT Nose gear touchdown:11:39:15 a.m. EDT Wheels stop:11:40:15 a.m. EDT Total miles:5.276 million
In a new book, documentary, and promotional Web site, paleontologist Jorn Hurum, who led the team that analyzed the 47-million-year-old fossil seen above, suggests Ida is a critical missing-0link species in primate evolution.
The fossil, he says, bridges the evolutionary split between higher primates such as monkeys, apes, and humans and their more distant relatives such as lemurs.
"This is the first link to all humans," Hurum, of the Natural History Museum in Oslo, Norway, said in a statement. Ida represents "the closest thing we can get to a direct ancestor."
Ida, properly known as Darwinius masillae, has a unique anatomy. The lemur-like skeleton features primate-like characteristics, including grasping hands, opposable thumbs, clawless digits with nails, and relatively short limbs.
"This specimen looks like a really early fossil monkey that belongs to the group that includes us," said Brian Richmond, a biological anthropologist at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., who was not involved in the study.
But there's a big gap in the fossil record from this time period, Richmond noted. Researchers are unsure when and where the primate group that includes monkeys, apes, and humans split from the other group of primates that includes lemurs.
"[Ida] is one of the important branching points on the evolutionary tree," Richmond said, "but it's not the only branching point."
At least one aspect of Ida is unquestionably unique: her incredible preservation, unheard of in specimens from the Eocene era, when early primates underwent a period of rapid evolution. (Explore a prehistoric time line.)
"From this time period there are very few fossils, and they tend to be an isolated tooth here or maybe a tailbone there," Richmond explained. "So you can't say a whole lot of what that [type of fossil] represents in terms of evolutionary history or biology."
In Ida's case, scientists were able to examine fossil evidence of fur and soft tissue and even picked through the remains of her last meal: fruits, seeds, and leaves.
What's more, the newly described "missing link" was found in Germany's Messel Pit. Ida's European origins are intriguing, Richmond said, because they could suggest—contrary to common assumptions—that the continent was an important area for primate evolution
courtesy. National Geography
place. regarding the passage,we can say we can go for time travel.
I met thombre sir in my school.It was an off period and he came to my class and started to tell information about the Black holes.Just before two days i had watched a science programme on black holes on discovery channel so i knew something about it. we discussed a lot.Since then we have constant discussion on phone,email or in school about various concepts.He taught me how to see the other side of science and how to understand the science. Everyday of school,before 15 minutes to the recess over bell,we talk with each other.He helped me in getting the first prize at the District level Debate competition. He is currently doing Ph.dHe is a Gold medalist in physics and teaches computer science in my school.I thank him for all the things and dedicate this 50th post to him...pluto, which is only about two-thirds the size of our moon, is a cold, dark and frozen place. Relatively little is known about this tiny planet with the strange orbit. Its composition is presumed to be rock and ice, with a thin atmosphere of nitrogen, carbon monoxide and methane. The Hubble Space Telescope has produced only fuzzy images (above) of the distant object.
Pluto's 248-year orbit is off-center in relation to the sun, which causes the planet to cross the orbital path of Neptune. From 1979 until early 1999, Pluto had been the eighth planet from the sun. Then, on February 11, 1999, it crossed Neptune's path and once again became the solar system's most distant planet. It will remain the ninth planet for 228 years.
Pluto's orbit is inclined, or tilted, 17.1 degrees from the ecliptic -- the plane that Earth orbits in. Except for Mercury's inclination of 7 degrees, all the other planets orbit more closely to the ecliptic.
Interestingly, a similar thing happens with Jupiter's moons: Many orbit on the ecliptic, but some are inclined from that plane.
Did you wonder: Will Pluto and Neptune ever collide? They won't, because their orbits are so different. Pluto intersects the solar system's ecliptic, or orbital plane, twice as its orbit brings it "above," then "below" that plane where most of the other planets' revolve -- including Neptune. And, though they are neighbors Pluto and Neptune are always more than a billion miles apart.
Some astronomers think Pluto may have wandered into the system of planets from a more distant region known as the Kuiper belt -- a region beyond the orbit of Pluto thought to contain Pluto-like objects and comets that orbit the sun in a plane similar to the planets of the solar system.
If that's the case, Pluto is not a planet at all, but is probably more like a large asteroid or comet. Some have also suggested that it may have once been a moon of Neptune and escaped.
The International Astronomical Union, the organization responsible for classifying planets, gives these reasons for questioning Pluto's status as a planet:
Pluto has one moon, Charon, which was discovered in 1978. The satellite may be a chunk that broke off Pluto in a collision with another large object.
Pluto Data (averages):
Diameter: 1,430 miles (2,301 kilometers)
Time to rotate: 6 days, 9 hours
Orbit: 248 Earth years
Compared to Earth:
Mass: 0.2% of Earth's
Diameter: 18% of Earth's
Distance from sun: 39 times as far
PLUTO: HADES IN ANCIENT MYTH, ROMAN GOD OF THE UNDERWORLD
Pluto was not discovered until 1930, by amateur American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh. Since Tombaugh's death in 1997, many astronomers have increasingly urged the International Astronomical Union, which names celestial objects, to strip Pluto of its status as a planet.
courtesy
www.space.com
Akshay Deoras
have a certain time.it is known as an event.
of the wormhole which is close to earth's surface,and the other is at the other end.let us suppose proxima century. so if we compare the two time,we will find that the time on earth is slower than the time at the proxima century. but if we view through the wormhole,we will find that the time is same. this difference can be a time machine.. 
e a cyclone and will be attracted towards center of mass.when radius is more and mass is less,then light will travel in straight line as less mass means less gravity..
