Sunday, October 12, 2008

Anyone like collecting meteorites?

On Friday, Emily at the Planetary Society's blog posted satellite images of the fireball from the ex-asteroid that crashed into the Axis of Evil last week. Luckily, that image had grid lines on it, so I imported it into Google Earth and plotted up the location.

While a large proportion of the impactor vaporized, I would be very surprised if a few kilos didn't reach the ground. There might even be a ton or two. And it turns out that the site is close to a road, in very open country. Of course, given the low angle of impact, the debris may be significantly farther east. But that's OK- that puts it even closer to the road. Anyone out there have a Sudanese drivers license and a Landcruiser in NE Africa? That road doesn't look real good, but it may be further west than the yellow line, based on the (low res) photos.

2 comments:

Silver Fox said...

It looks pretty easy to get to, too bad my license just ran out. (Nice analysis!)

C W Magee said...

It looks very easy- If I was based in Cairo instead of Alice I'd be there by now...

Except, of course, since it is Africa there is the potential issue of landmines...