Asteroid Crater Hunting From Your Home (cool)

Just days after a Google Earth–aided discovery of a meteor impact was announced in Science, yet another crater has been found using Google Maps and open-access software. The age of armchair crater hunting has arrived.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/6398187e3dba.jpg[/atsimg]

Physicist Amelia Sparavigna of Politecnico di Torino in Italy found a 6-mile-wide crater in the Bayuda desert in Sudan using Google Maps, a free astronomical image-processing program she helped develop called AstroFracTool, and open source image-processing tool GIMP. The work appeared on ArXiv Aug. 3.

While no one has gone to the Bayuda crater site to confirm that it was formed by a meteor impact, the discovery demonstrates that with freely available software and a lot of spare time, anyone can become part of the search for craters.

As of today, there are about 175 confirmed craters on Earth caused by the impact of material from space, according to the Impact Database maintained by geologist David Rajmon.

Source: www.wired.com...

I never really gave much thought to Earth being like the other planets and had been bombarded with asteroids and the alike. This article puts a whole new perspective on how Earth isn't that much different and that there is much more to learn about craters/asteroids.

I hadn't realized there have been so many documented. Especially in the North America parts. Interesting. Enjoy

For some reason the subject line made me think this was going to be about hunting for craters on asteroids from your home. You can participate in studies of the shapes of asteroids by doing occultation timings if you have a telescope.
www.eclipsetours.com...
Pretty cool use of google earth though.

reply to post by ngchunter



I heard that there was some other ways to do this. I never have enough time to spend, searching for anything like that.

Thanks for posting that link. Will check out.

Thanks for posting this!
COOL!
It's great to see real science that everyone can enjoy and participate in on ATS!

reply to post by OldDragger


No problem and I agree completely. More tools to educate people.

I wish I had the stuff kids do today, when I was growing up. Sad to see the kids today not take advantage of the resources available to them.

Glad you liked.