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Google Sightseeing takes you on tour of the world as seen from satellite, using the free Google Earth program, or Google Maps in your web browser. Each weekday your guides James and Alex present new weird and wonderful sights as suggested by readers.

The editors: James & Alex

Kebira Crater

Monday, 6th March 2006 by Alex

Currently doing the rounds in the mainstream press, this is the recently discovered Kebira meteorite crater in the western desert of Egypt.

At 31 kilometers across Kebira utterly dwarfs Arizona’s famous Barringer meteor crater (which is only 1.2 kilometres in diameter), and was only discovered now due to its sheer size - it’s too big to recognise from the ground, and the scientists responsible for identifying it only did so using satellite imagery.

Kebira

For more information see this BBC news article.

Thanks to jher, Paul Drye, david, Keith T. Peter Grabowsky and lookabootye.

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Locations: Egypt / Categories: ,

11 Responses to 'Kebira Crater'

  1. 1. Slugs On Toast says: March 7th, 2006 at 2:34 am

    But did they use *Google* satellite imagery?

  2. 2. mash says: March 7th, 2006 at 9:39 am

    Are you sure that it was a meteorit? This

    Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth

    near the crater looks like an alien city.

  3. 3. Edward says: March 7th, 2006 at 11:56 am

    (response to Mash)
    Those are normal centre-pivot irrigation fields… but what are those large hexagonal structures? The hexagons and circles dwarf the airstrip in the middle of it too.

  4. 4. cookie monster says: March 7th, 2006 at 6:56 pm

    Apart from obvious benefit to the likes of us, why on earth are huges swathes of featureless desert covered in high res whilst large areas of western Europe still havent been done?

  5. 5. Tim says: March 7th, 2006 at 11:36 pm

    Er, this is high res? This is normal res, and although I haven’t checked, I think it’s safe to say that those large areas have the same resolution.

    West of the town: more duct tape! Zoom out so you can see the town and the crater and you’ll see it.

  6. 6. cookie monster says: March 8th, 2006 at 8:20 pm

    Do you know what tim? - you are right!
    What a muppet i am!

  7. 7. Jamie says: March 9th, 2006 at 12:13 pm

    Anyone know what this cool blue stuff is, just to the south? Looks really good:

    Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth

  8. 8. Jamie says: March 9th, 2006 at 12:15 pm

    Anyone know what this cool blue stuff is, just to the south? Looks really good:

    Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth

    (I think its water but I have no idea what water is doing other there in the middle of no-where or why its in such funky shapes)

  9. 9. Alex says: March 9th, 2006 at 12:25 pm

    Tha blue water is an extinct volcano Waw An Numus which we posted back in July - if only we’d recognised the Kebira Crater at the time!

  10. 10. pfft to Google says: March 10th, 2006 at 4:21 pm

    I agree with Cookie Monster. It’s totally stupid to have pictures of dessert, etc when they could cover more interesting places in the world.

  11. 11. Babaganoosh says: March 12th, 2006 at 12:39 am

    Edward, I’m not sure what the large hexagons are, but I did find the name of the city (Al Jawf) using Neave.com’s Flash Earth (very handy program)
    http://www.flashearth.com/
    I tried a bit of a search on the city but couldn’t come up with much. Almost looks to me to be a newly developed residential district.

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