Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Holy Meteorite, Batman!

The world is a really big place.  Just north of the Egyptian border with Sudan, researches recently discovered a 100 foot diameter meteor crater with 10 foot high walls.  They think it's been there for roughly 1000 years, which is very, very young for such a large crater.  So young, in fact, that the ejecta rays are still visible on the Google Earth photo (erosion and other forces usually wipe these out quite quickly).


The researchers who found this crater actually used Google Earth photos to locate it.  Then they went on an expedition to actually look at it in person.  That must have been fun!

If you'd like to look at this yourself on Googe Earth, the coordinates are: 26º05′15″E 22º01′05″N.

Click to enlarge either of these images...