Iron Maiden Strikes Earth
August 5th 2010 01:42
Category: No Category
Kamil Crater Egypt
looking for evidence relating to meteorite impact on earth can be time-consuming business. The earth has had a great number of large meteorite impact craters in the past.
While most of the large impact craters can be seen and easily recognised is often the smaller impact craters that are the most interesting ones to look for. The job of finding meteorites has become a little easier with satellite technology.
The Landsat spacecraft has enabled images of the Earth available to the general public since the 1970s. These images are very useful because they cover most of the Earth's surface, these images led to the discovery of the Kamil crater discovered in Egypt recently.
The pristine looking greater is about 184 feet in diameter and about 50 feet deep. What made this find unique is the fact that the crater still contains most of the original fragments from the impact.
It is estimated that the meteorite that formed the crater was relatively small around 5 foot in diameter with a weight of around 10 tons travelling at a speed exceeding 2.5 miles per second. Although the mass of the meteorite was quite small it was enough to gouge a crater measuring hundred and 84 feet in diameter.
A fragment found 750 feet north of the crater, weighs 183 pounds (83 kg) the composition of the meteorite is mostly Iron.
This was one of the rare finds because this particular crater is one of about 175 in total that still contains material from the original impact.
images Univ. of Siena / Museo Nazionale dell'Antartide
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