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The destructive space rock was somewhere between 12.4 and 15.5 miles wide. The largest asteroid ever to hit Earth, which slammed into the planet around 2 billion years ago, may have been even more massive than scientists previously thought. Based on the size of the Vredefort crater, the enormous impact scar left by the gargantuan space rock in what is now South Africa, researchers recently estimated that the epic impactor could have been around twice as wide as the asteroid that wiped out the nonavian dinosaurs. The Vredefort crater, which is located around 75 miles (120 kilometers) southwest of Johannesburg,...

Israeli archaeologists on Sunday announced the "once-in-a-lifetime" discovery of a burial cave from the time of ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Rameses II, filled with dozens of pottery pieces and bronze artifacts. The cave was uncovered on a beach Tuesday, when a mechanical digger working at the Palmahim national park hit its roof, with archaeologists using a ladder to descend into the spacious, man-made square cave. In a video released by the Israel Antiquities Authority, gobsmacked archaeologists shine flashlights on dozens of pottery vessels in a variety of forms and sizes, dating back to the reign of the ancient Egyptian king who...

During construction work at Palmachim National Park near Tel Aviv, a fallen rock reveals an ancient treasure trove from the era of the biblically notorious pharoah A team of archaeologists was essentially transported back in time when it entered an untouched 3,300-year-old cave at the Palmachim National Park, just south of Tel Aviv, last week. The vast array of discovered items date to the Late Bronze Age, close to or during the rein of the biblically notorious Ramses II. The cave was spotted when a rock shifted during the course of construction work and light was literally shed on an...

An Egyptian archaeological mission working in Giza’s prominent Saqqara necropolis has unearthed several blocks of white cheese dating back to the 26th dynasty of ancient Egypt (664–525 BC).A statement from the country’s antiquities ministry said the find was accomplished during the first round of excavations of the mission’s sixth season, which kicked off on Saturday.According to the statement, the mission unearthed a number of clay receptacles containing the cheese, inscribed with Demotic script — ancient Egyptian writing also found on the Rosetta Stone royal decree.The mission reportedly found a number of other containers that are expected to be opened in...

And it could shed light on our distant evolution. Says the co-author of a study on the fossilized organ: "We are all related, in the most literal sense." Professor Kate Trinajstic inspects a fossil of an ancient fish at the Western Australian Museum. Curtin University A 380 million-year-old fish heart found embedded in a chunk of Australian sediment has scientists' pulses racing. Not only is this organ in remarkable condition, but it could also yield clues about the evolution of jawed vertebrates, which include you and me. The heart belonged to an extinct class of armored, jawed fish called arthrodires...

A blackened, broken leg bone from Earth’s prehistoric past may hold the answer to when early humans diverged from apes and started their own evolutionary path.The fossilized find, first uncovered two decades ago, suggests that early humans regularly walked on two feet some seven million years ago... Since many consider bipedalism the major milestone that put our own lineage on a different evolutionary path than the apes, Sahelanthropus could be the very oldest known hominin—the group consisting of modern humans, extinct human species and all of our immediate ancestors.The species could even be our oldest non-ape ancestor, if its lineage...

Lizard Skull Fossil Closeup One of the Thalassotitan skulls. (University of Bath) The discovery of incredible fossils of a giant marine lizard reveals how this ancient extinct beast would have ruled the sea 66 million years ago. The beast is a newly discovered species of mosasaur, giant marine reptiles that hunted the oceans during the Late Cretaceous. It's called Thalassotitan atrox, and wear on its teeth along with other remains found at its excavation site suggest that this intimidating animal was no gentle giant – but feasted on difficult prey such as sea turtles, plesiosaurs, and other mosasaurs. Other mosasaurs...

U2 surveillance aircraft criss-crossed the globe photographing everything from 70,000 feet. The pictures, now on display at the Penn Museum, reveal a wealth of archaeological information...Images taken from on high to observe what may be buried underground have been used by archaeologists for more than a century, and researchers at the Penn Museum have embraced the technology since at least the 1920s.But no one has ever utilized the most famous trove of aerial images from the Cold War, those produced by high-flying U-2 spy planes, first deployed by the CIA to photograph all over the world beginning in 1956, a...

What was the shape of Noah’s Ark? For millennia Jewish and Christian clerics, scholars, and academics, as well as others with too much time on their hands, have pondered this question. Artist rendering of the one true shape of Noah’s Ark, scientifically provenILLUSTRATION: JON BERKELEY What makes it tantalizing is the precision of the numbers in Genesis 6 (here, in the King James translation): [13] And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth. [14] Make thee...

In 2010, the Hong Kong organization Noah’s Ark Ministries International or NAMI announced they had discovered the legendary vessel on Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey and were subsequently accused of perpetrating a hoax. Now, a professional archaeologist states there is significant merit to their discovery. Harvard University educated archaeologist and director of the Paleontological Research Corporation, Dr. Joel Klenck, surveyed the site, analyzed the archaeological remains and completed a comparative study. “The site is remarkable”, states Klenck, “and comprises a large all-wood structure with an archaeological assemblage that appears to be mostly from the Late Epipaleolithic Period.” These assemblages at...