Dinosaur Prints at NASA Reveal King Koopa-Like Creature (VIDEO)
110 million-year-old dinosaur prints have been discovered in NASA's backyard.
While NASA is typically known for its rocket scientists and space explorations, it appears that a bit of history has incidentally landed in its backyard. The history mark is a dinner plate sized print that belongs to a long-deceased dinosaur.
The tracks were discovered at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, by dino hunter Ray Stanford. While NASA has yet to reveal the location of the prints in order to avoid damage, Stanford has determined that the print belong to "a lumbering, spiny dinosaur called a nodosaur" according to CBS News.
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The prints are believed to be around 110 million years old and were created in the Cretaceous period. Four front toes can be made out, with a very light back heel, suggesting that the dino was in a bit of a rush. The finding was confirmed by Johns Hopkins University dinosaur expert David Weishampel and then shared with both Goddard officials and the media.
"Space scientists may walk along here, and they're walking exactly where this big, bungling heavy-armored dinosaur walked, maybe 110 to 112-million years ago," Stanford told Goddard officials, according to CBS.
In the past, numerous amounts of fossils have been discovered in Maryland. CBS reported that "the corridor between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, Md., is known as 'Dinosaur Alley,' because so many of the beasts' fossils were discovered during iron mining in the 18th and 19th centuries."
The Nodosaur himself looks something like King Koopa from the old Mario Brothers. He would have walked similarly to that of a very large turtles and much like Bowser, had a back full of osteoderms- a thick armor which also slightly resembles small horns. The Nodosaur is also heavily built.
