Landsat image (color composite) of the newfound Kebira Crater in the Western Desert of Egypt at the border with Libya. The outer rim of the crater is about 19 miles (31 km) in diameter. Image courtesy of Boston University Center for Remote Sensing
Posted on 03/03/2006 8:58:45 PM PST by NormsRevenge
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.
In fact, the newfound crater, in Egypt, was likely carved by a space rock that was itself roughly 0.75 miles wide in an event that would have been quite a shock, destroying everything for hundreds of miles. For comparison, the Chicxulub crater left by a dinosaur-killing asteroid 65 million years ago is estimated to be 100 to 150 miles (160 to 240 kilometers) wide.
The crater was discovered in satellite images by Boston University researchers Farouk El-Baz and Eman Ghoneim.
El-Baz named the crater “Kebira,” which means “large” in Arabic and also relates to its location on the northern tip of the Gilf Kebir region in southwestern Egypt.
“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.”
The crater has two rings, a common configuration. Over time, it has been eroded by wind and water to make it unrecognizable to the untrained eye.
“The courses of two ancient rivers run through it from the east and west,” Ghoneim said.
The timing of the impact has not been determined.
The impact that carved Kebira might have created an extensive field of yellow-green silica fragments, known as desert glass and found on the surface between the giant dunes of the Great Sand Sea in southwestern Egypt, the researchers said.
Landsat image (color composite) of the newfound Kebira Crater in the Western Desert of Egypt at the border with Libya. The outer rim of the crater is about 19 miles (31 km) in diameter. Image courtesy of Boston University Center for Remote Sensing
Makes for really interesting subsurface structures too!
Wonder when that hit, because that was for sure almost 4 times the size needed to end all life on earth when it hit.
Pre-Bush's fault for sure.
24° 40' 23.24" N, 24° 57' 51.02" E on Google Earth
Any pictures of that?
Here's some info on the Chesapeake crater
http://www.unb.ca/passc/ImpactDatabase/images/chesapeake.htm
Great post!
I wonder what proof exists this is not an older sinkhole, or simply an indentation from that great knuckleball emanating from the Big Bang.
great post,thanks
How was this just discovered now? 19 mile diameter - are we gonna find another "New World" again?
Also known as 'Apollo space program legend Dr. Farouk El-Baz'.
Kibera crater ping
Can you tell em more about that ? Never heard of it .
http://www.bu.edu/remotesensing/Faculty/El-Baz/FEBbio.html
Dr. Farouk El-Baz
He's been doing this kind of stuff a long time.
Dr. Eman Ghoneim
http://www.bu.edu/remotesensing/Faculty/Ghoneim/
She's the youngster of the pair who discovered Kibera.
There are likely quite a few more craters to be identified.
As to new worlds, ya never know what lies beneath our feet or the waves... and how new technologies can help us locate them.
There was one theory I heard, long ago, that Earth was fertile, but lacked that spark for life to begin - kind of like an unfertilized egg.
Without the event of the meteor collisions, the essential element(s) for life weren't present.
Wow! Even with the circle around it, though, it seems kind of hard to miss.
Maybe there's a big chunk of rock in there someone could worship.
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