Bill Nye the Science Guy

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S1 E3

Dinosaurs

We can dish the real dirt about dinosaurs, thanks to fossils - traces of theses astonishing animals. Dinosaurs did not print newspapers. They did not take family snapshots or videos 65 million years ago. The only proof scientists have of dinosaurs is their fossils, especially bones. They would never have survived billions of years waiting for some human to trip over them. Luckily for paleontologists (scientists who study the past), now and then dinosaurs died, and their bones were covered by mud, or sand. As the bones sat protected from weather, they absorbed minerals from the soil around them. The minerals chemically worked their way into the bones. Millions of years later, we can find them and dig them up. Humans were not around to see what actually killed the ancient dinosaurs. Many scientists think a meteorite, or lots of meteorites, crashed into the Earth. When the space rocks hit the ground, they made big craters and kicked up a lot of dust and dirt. If enough d