The satellite navigation system has provided humanity with many possibilities. In addition to actual maps, people can observe remote corners of our planet without leaving their homes. Not only specialists, cartographers, scientists can monitor the state of the Earth from satellites, but also those for whom the search for new information is a kind of hobby.
So, once were discovered unexplained objects in Antarctica, "colorful plankton dances", the movement of shelves and glaciers. Scientists can map the quality of the ozone layer, vegetation cycles on continents, melting ice, fires, the formation of clouds, clouds and cyclones.
The latest find in the analysis of satellite images was another giant crater in the Sahara.
The "El Bahra" embankment from the Earth does not look like the edging of a funnel.
How the new funnel was discovered
During the annual analysis of satellite images of the Earth, astrophysicists stumbled upon a strange topographic formation. In the east of the Sahara, on the territory of Egypt, a crater gaped, outwardly similar to a crater. The object was identified as a crater that appeared during the fall of an asteroid to Earth, and named it "El Bahr".
Promotional video:
Egyptian crater parameters
According to its spectral and topographic characteristics, "El Bahr" is an impact crater. It has a bowl shape. The edges of the recess are surrounded by a bulk shaft. The funnel diameter is 327 meters and practically does not change during coaxial measurements. The area of the facility is truly impressive. Together with the bottom and walls of the bowl, it is 84,000 m2.
Study of the find
It is difficult to determine the reason for the formation of this geological anomaly based on images from space. Therefore, specialists from the Center for Space Sciences, together with scientists from Cairo University, will soon go to the desert to explore the surroundings of the crater and the crater itself.
The members of the research group hope to find the remains of a cosmic body or particles of minerals characteristic of an asteroid. In addition, by comparing width and depth, it is possible to determine exactly what has left a footprint: volcanic activity or an asteroid. Since the ratio of the depth of the bowl to the diameter of a vertically falling celestial body is close to 0.33, for craters of volcanic origin this indicator is close to 0.4.
Under the sands of the Sahara, several evidences of the interaction of the Earth with space bodies are hidden.
Scientists suspect that the results of the expedition will be the same as in 2010, when they explored another Egyptian crater "Kamil". It was much smaller, but then they managed to extract 800 kg of iron fragments of a meteorite, the diameter of which, most likely, was about 1.5 meters.
Most likely, during this expedition, there will be much more material, because the movements of lithospheric plates have not yet been recorded in the Sahara, which cannot be said about the south of the continent. It is possible that scientists again encountered a cosmic body, which will allow them to learn more about the Universe.