Huge Crater Discovered in Saharan Desert

March 5, 2006

At a site in the Saharan desert on the border between Egypt and Libya, scientists have determined a huge 19 mile-wide crater was formed by an impact of a rock from space. More like an entire asteroid probably. They used satellite photos to help make the determination. Provided was a picture from an enhanced Landsat satellite photo. Naturally I had to go into Google Earth to see if I could find it. Not only did I find it easily, but it was quite recognizeable in GE that its a meteor crater . I’m surprised it took this long for someone to notice! The scientists said this crater is so large it probably would not be noticed except from space. Here’s the story at space.com.
You can check out lots of craters in Google Earth, and here’s a link to an earlier story I did about the crater collection.

About Frank Taylor

Frank Taylor started the Google Earth Blog in July, 2005 shortly after Google Earth was first released. He has worked with 3D computer graphics and VR for many years and was very impressed with this exciting product. Frank completed a 5.5 year circumnavigation of the earth by sailboat in June 2015 which you can read about at Tahina Expedition, and is a licensed pilot, backpacker, diver, and photographer.

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Comments

IckyChris says

March 6, 2006 at 7:59 am

As soon as I saw the Landstat photo I went searching for the crater in GE.
And when I found it, I wondered why anybody was bothering with the Landstat photo when the GE image looked so much better!
If you turn on the Crater List you will see another smaller crater just off to the west. I wonder if it is from the same event?
SashDaMan says

March 6, 2006 at 1:00 pm

Yes, even if you turn on “Google Earth Community” it comes up, “Hit over 120 million Years ago.( http://img313.imageshack.us/img313/9831/crater8ot.jpg ) Again go north west of the original posted crater and you see another one, maybe from the same one that happened 120 million years ago.
Caspar says

March 6, 2006 at 6:35 pm

Both the mentioned Oasis and B.P. Structure mentioned have a dating of <120 million years. According to the confirmed impact database. So it’s not to far off to think they were part of a larger piece of rock that broke up and hit the Sahara a long time ago in multiple strikes.
Just take a look at the Arkenu craters and Aorounga crater(s). Those are also multiple impacts at the ‘same’ time. But they are much closer together. Statistic people should have a field-day explaining why there are three multi-strikes in such a small part of the world. Either the dating is false or multiple strikes at once are more common… Just a thought.
Anyway, I got some suspected impact structures as well: http://www.thinklemon.com/weblog/2006/01/31/google-earth-suspected-earth-impact-sites-kml/
In which the new found crater isn’t present, yet.
Wilfried says

August 31, 2006 at 9:20 am

I
Jacques (from France) says

November 25, 2006 at 9:25 am

It’s Timia, which is a great volcanic site 200 km (130 miles) north of Agades.
Allen says

January 19, 2011 at 6:00 pm

If you draw a line between the 2 great Pyramids and then extend that line. It will point directly to this crater … Humm
Cliff Sumbler says

January 28, 2011 at 4:45 pm

A few years ago there was either a National Geograpcs or PBS show on the Pharohs Glass. A large area where the desert sands had been fused to a natural glass. But no crater allegedly found. Was this in that area

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