Dinosaurs and Space
Imagine if you were a dinosaur in the Late Cretaceous period and you looked up at the night sky. What sorts of celestial wonders would you see?
In many cases the night sky would look remarkably different than it does today. Many of the familiar patterns we see in the night sky wouldn’t exist! The North Star, for example, wasn’t in Earth’s rotational pole yet. Neither was the Little Dipper.
The moon would look much larger in the night sky than it does today. Ever since the formation of our moon, it has been gradually moving further and further away from Earth. During the Mesozoic, it would have been much closer and would have looked much larger in the night sky.
As far as the planets are concerned, they would look mostly the same as they do today with the possible exception of Saturn. Calculations done by scientists at NASA suggest that the rings of Saturn may have formed as recently as 100 million years ago right at the start of the Late Cretaceous period. That means if you were a dinosaur and had a telescope, you could see the early formation of the rings of Saturn . . . plus the giant dinosaur-killing asteroid heading directly toward Earth!
If you want to learn more about dinosaurs, space, and many other disciplines of science, come check us out at Tyrannostorus.