Scientists have discovered a huge crater in the Saharan desert, the largest one ever found there. The crater is about 19 miles (31 kilometers) wide, more than twice as big as the next largest Saharan crater known. It utterly dwarfs Meteor Crater in Arizona, which is about three-fourths of a mile (1.2 kilometers) in diameter.
The crater was discovered in satellite images by Boston University researchers Farouk El-Baz and Eman Ghoneim.
“Kebira may have escaped recognition because it is so large—bigger than the area of 125 football fields, or the total expanse of the Cairo urban region from its airport in the northeast to the Pyramids of Giza in the southwest,” El-Baz said today. “Also, the search for craters typically concentrates on small features, especially those that can be identified on the ground. The advantage of a view from space is that it allows us to see regional patterns and the big picture.”
There’s an asteroid bypassing Earth, today — almost the same size! Aren’t you glad it’s only “close”?
That is a pretty awesome find. Now we just need some coordinates so we can try to find this on google earth.
Even more interesting – how old is it?
Try 24º 40′ 25.24 N x 24º 58′ 38.37E
That looks like it, anyway!
Here is a direct link:
http://www.google.com/lochp?hl=en&q=&t=k&ll=24.686329,24.970551&spn=0.367471,0.55069&t=k
As to why so long…. big Earth, few eyes.
By the way, if you ever watched “From the Earth to the Moon” you may recognize the name Farouk El-Baz.
that is sooooooooooooo cool…..it would be nice to know how long ago it hit as Mika asked.
Speaking about close calls, If memory serves me dave Thomas (wendys founder) died the last time we had a near miss by a astroid
and…..the connection is…………………what Dan…..lmao
And talking about craters, have you ever considered that the relative size of the Moon and the Sun are the same as seen on Earth? That is an amazing, astronomically-impossible coincidence. From Astronomy Magazine:
“Believe it or not, it actually is just a coincidence — and a happy one at that. The Moon and Sun have virtually the same angular size in our sky because the Sun is about 400 times wider than the Moon, but it’s also about 400 times farther away. This allows us to see spectacular coronal displays and prominences during total solar eclipses. Interestingly, this hasn’t always been the case. Tidal interactions cause the Moon to spiral about one inch per year away from Earth. In the distant past, the Moon was close enough to Earth so that it could block the Sun’s entire disk and then some. Our prehuman ancestors would not have witnessed the beautiful coronal displays that we now enjoy. And about 50 million years from now, the Moon will be far enough away so that our descendants will only see annular eclipses.
So why do we happen to live in the brief period of Earth’s history when the moon just barely blocks the sun? Indeed, the odds against it are enormous. But the universe is a large enough place so that highly improbable coincidences can and do occur. It’s important to note, however, that even today some solar eclipses are annular because the Earth and Moon have elliptical orbits. — ROBERT NAEYE, SENIOR EDITOR”
http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=2196
God is winking at us.
Take a look at Manicouagan crater up in northern Quebec:
http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/multimedia/display.cfm?IM_ID=792
This crater is 100 km (62 miles) in diameter! The ring you see around the edge of the crater is now a reservoir (on the Manicouagan river) that has a hydroelectric dam at the southern end of the crater.
Delightful photo, Floyd.