Fossils Aboard Blue Origin's Space Flight: Ancient Ancestor of Primates Among Passengers

Blue Origin's 8th commercial space flight gained attention for its unusual passengers: animal fossils. Rob Ferl, a geneticist and professor at the University of Florida, included three fossils on the journey. These were: Teilhardina [ty-ar-dee-nah], an ancestor of modern primates; a lunar snail fossil nearly 3 million years old; and a fossil of Sifrhippus sandrae [sy-frih-puhs san-dree], the earliest known horse, approximately 56 million years old.