Fordaily newsstories, visit newsclentistcom/news Giektszone uz Huge dinosaur may have stood onits tiptoes EXAMINING ossilshas revealed that 24-tonne dinosaur was unableto flatton tsfeeton the ground. instead, emayhave stood on tstiptoes, wth fleshy pa¢s for additional balance ‘Rhostosaurus brownie was sauropod dinosaur that lived around 1170milion yearsago. Sauropods walked on allfoursandhad long necks and als They were the argestland animals everknown toexist and the ‘group also includes diplodocus. ‘Andréas annel atthe University of Queenstandin Australia andhis colleagues analysed afoot fossilot brownie to see how itcould have supporteditsat ‘They found thatitsbonestructure ‘meant thattwouldn’thave been abletotouchitsheels tothe ground withoutbreakingitsankles. Thissuggests that, despite being ‘enormous, A. brownie may have had towalkonitstiptoes Gournal ‘of Morphology, doi.org/c4a2). Footprintsofsauropods thatlived a fewmilion yearslater have suggested thatthe feat ofthese giants would have resembled those of modem clophants. xrays of elephants reveal thatthese animale stand on their toestoo,and havea thick ayer of soft tissue that touches the ground, brownie wasfivetimes asheary asanelephant somay haveneeded similarsoft padding to supportits humongous body and give itbalance, saysfannel However, thereisno lirect fossil evidence of sucha heelpadon R bronnieor other sauropods perhaps becausesoft tissuerarely survives decomposition. ‘Sauropodswere much largerthan theirancestors, and appear to have evolved theirheft relatively rapidly Asaresut,notevery artof their body was prepared forsuchan ‘expansion, says Denver Fowler atthe Dickinson Museum Centerin North Dakota. Toadapt,sauropods would havehadtoevolvenewweight- support systems, and heel pads would hhave been useful, hesays. Yaine Ye mt IELTS ZONE Aninterstellar rock could have hit Earth in 2014 “OUMUAMUA the “interstellar asteroid” may not have been the firstinterstellarrock we have ever detected. Ameteorthat burned uupin Earth’s atmosphere in 2014 could have come froma distant planetary system and, fit di, Itwas probably from thearea around the system's star where life would be most likely to occur. Every day, morethan oo tonnes of space dust and rocks hit our atmosphere. Most oft burns before it reaches the ground, arth is just sweeping upall of this material like the front of a car's windshield as it goes around thesun,”"says Michele Bannister at Queen's University Belfast, UK. “There'sthis regular pitter-patter.” ‘Most of the material comes fromcomets asteroids and planets within our solar system, Dut AmirSirajand AviLoebat Harvard University say they have found thesignalofa meteorthat travelled from further away. They combed througha catalogue of meteors potted by network of detectors owned by the US government toexamine these objects’ speeds and trajectories. They were looking formeteors that might not be itationally bound tothe sun, ‘meaning they have probably been tossed here from somewhere els. Thisissimilartohow ‘Oumuamua, our solar system's first documented interstellar “If this meteor truly was interstellar, it may have come from close to another star in the Milky Way” visitor, was detected In 2017 Itwas farfrom Earth, but tstrajectory showed that itcouldn’thave come frominside oursolar system, Sirajand Loeb found a meteor that also seemed tobe from somewhere else. twas about so centimetres across and ‘Vaporised in ouratmospherein 2014 If wecould study meteors like thisas they burn up, we ‘ight beableto tell what they +998 97 130 68.22 A fewof the rocks striking our planet may have an unusual origin are made of tolearn about other stellarsystems. The meteor hit theatmosphere atabout a5 kilometres per second, Forittohavebeenbound tothe solarsystem, It would have to have been movingat no more than about 20 kilometres per second, says Loeb (arxiv.org/ abs/1904.07224). ‘Thisis far from the first claim ofan interstellar meteor, says Bannister. Peter Brown at Western University in Canadaagrees. "Todate, pretty much allof them canbe explained [away] with ‘measurement uncertainty," he says."To beableto say we found an interstellar meteor, youhave toknow your uncertainties very well, and Idon't think wecan inthiscase’"The government database doesn't provide precise ‘measurement uncertainties Ifthismeteortruly were interstellar, itsspeed and trajectory indicate it may have come from relatively close to another starin the Milky Way. fitwerea dwarf star, this means therock could once have been inthe habitable zone, whereit is neither toe hot nor too cold for liquid water, whieh is necessary forlifeas we know tt. Sirajand Loeb calculated that objects roughly the sizeof this ‘meteor should hit Earthabout oncea decade, with larger rocks like’ Oumuamua being rarer. ‘The 2014 meteor vas too small tocarry any life safely through interstellar space from its home star ifthe radiation didn't prove fatal, being vaporised on arrival certainly would have. But larger, rarer objects maybe ableto spread life throughout the {galaxy and even eave evidence ofitin meteorites that make itto the surface of our planet. “I think It’s ike looking fora message in bottle on the beach,” says Loeb. ‘Most ofthe time you see rocks, butonceina whileyou might find abottle” Leah Crane m Newseientist