NASA Find a 500-Kilometer-Wide Asteroid Crater Beneath Antarctica

NASA radar revealed a crater diameter of 500 kilometers, about two kilometers hidden under the Antarctic ice, in the province of Wilkes Land ..

It is more than twice as bigger than Chicxulub crater, which was wiped out the dinosaurs ..

"Hit the Wilkes Land is much greater than that which killed the dinosaurs, and probably at that time caused the catastrophic consequences," he told the Daily Galaxy Ralph von Fresu, university professor of geological sciences in the U.S. state of Ohio.

Antartica19_02 No mass extinction on Earth has been so tightly linked to an impact as the Chicxulub Crater which cuts across the northern Yucatan peninsula in Mexico in a mighty arc 170 kilometers (105 miles) across. The crater's size implies an asteroid some 10 kilometers -seven miles- wide and reaching a depth as deep as the deepest ocean trench plunging the Earth into a global winter night that cut off photosynthesis for months, even years.
But one other may make the Chicxulub impact look like a 4th of July event.

In 2006, NASA gravity and subsurface radar maps revealed a 500-kilometer-wide crater that lies hidden more than a mile beneath the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, created by a 50-kilometer wide object. The gravity measurements suggest that it could date back about 250 million years -- the time of the Permian-Triassic extinction, when almost all animal life on Earth died out.

Its size and location -- in the Wilkes Land region of East Antarctica, south of Australia -- also suggest that it could have begun the breakup of the Gondwana supercontinent by creating the tectonic rift that pushed Australia northward.

www.dailygalaxy.com...

It's not a crater, it's the entrance to the hollow earth

Originally posted by rsk360
It's not a crater, it's the entrance to the hollow earth

No it isn't, it's a 500km crater.

An old one.

Nice find. Let's hope we've evolved and become savvy and wise enough to prevent the Holocene Extinction!

I pulled these images off the net. That is a big hole



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I wonder what that one wiped out of existence?

reply to post by Dalke07

In 2006, NASA gravity and subsurface radar maps revealed a 500-kilometer-wide crater that lies hidden more than a mile beneath the East Antarctic Ice Sheet,

Ummm... there's a point here I think being missed and it's a big one!

Radar, Ground Penetrating Radar that can analyze and measure structures one to two miles into the ground, through maybe an additional 1/2 mile to two miles of ice? Think of the power required to do that and think of your exposure to that power. Being bombarded with millions of whats of basically X-Rays, every once in a while.

Looks like there's no where safe on the planet now that this cat is out of the proverbial bag!

Cheers - Dave

reply to post by bobs_uruncle

The radar did not penetrate the earth, just the ice. Beneath the ice a circular ridge was found by radar.

When the scientists overlaid their gravity image with airborne radar images of the ground beneath the ice, they found the mascon perfectly centered inside a circular ridge some 300 miles wide -- a crater easily large enough to hold the state of Ohio.

www.dailygalaxy.com...

Ice penetrating radar does not use x-rays. Ice is quite easy for radio frequencies to penetrate. It doesn't take a lot of power.
www.ig.utexas.edu...

reply to post by Dalke07


incredible find

S+F

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by bobs_uruncle

 

The radar did not penetrate the earth, just the ice. Beneath the ice a circular ridge was found by radar.

When the scientists overlaid their gravity image with airborne radar images of the ground beneath the ice, they found the mascon perfectly centered inside a circular ridge some 300 miles wide -- a crater easily large enough to hold the state of Ohio.

www.dailygalaxy.com...

Ice penetrating radar does not use x-rays. Ice is quite easy for radio frequencies to penetrate. It doesn't take a lot of power.
www.ig.utexas.edu...

edit on 10/4/2011 by Phage because: (no reason given)

But, this is happening from space, I presume the orbiter is a low flyer, something in the range of 200 to 300 miles up. Although, the EMF transmission through space sees no loss considering the distance to the atmosphere, the atmospheric attenuation can be quite profound (frequency dependent of course), which of course means a higher probability of elevated power levels.

The second item, if ice was so easy to penetrate then it follows, so would water. We do know however that is not the case, point in force, submarine communications which require fairly high power at low frequencies for sub to sub and sub to beacon transmission. Like lasers as well, there are serious problems with attenuation in the 850nm to 1300nm bands (reduced when ring lasers and accelerators are used), but UV between 280nm to 425nm can penetrate water in a reasonable but limited sense, say the first 20 to 70 feet (power and frequency dependent).

If they are using ELF/SLF/VLF at moderate to high power for scanning that's not exactly a good thing either as these frequency ranges can cause triggering of seismic activity in areas of weak plate boundaries. Finally, we are dealing with EMF transmission in every case here and the higher the power in W/mw's per square meter, the greater the risk of genetic damage and cancer. A well proven example is ELF from overhead power lines at sixty hertz.

Cheers - Dave

Originally posted by rsk360
It's not a crater, it's the entrance to the hollow earth

This is the first thing I thought of, too! Though obviously said in jest in this case.

Per the article, it matches up well with a mass-extinction event that occurred about 250 million years ago.

It will give geologists, etc., something to think about.

As for the public: The only use I can see for this information is to bolster public support for more spending on "space watcher" technology that would supposedly protect us from such events in the future by predicting them enough in advance so that we could do something to the object before it hit us. What the true use of that technology might include is anybody's guess.

It is interesting that this object possibly came in from our south. We don't usually think of most space debris as coming from that far away from the ecliptic, do we?

Originally posted by l_e_cox

It will give geologists, etc., something to think about.

Indeed it will. Am gonna ask my paleo professor about it tomorrow!

It is interesting that this object possibly came in from our south. We don't usually think of most space debris as coming from that far away from the ecliptic, do we?

Most of the junk that we see originates in our Solar system, so generally comes at us from the "usual" angles parallel to our orbit. But there's definitely orphan rocks out in deep space...I just read a piece saying that scientists could detect large (planet+) mass objects in free space, not tied to any stars, using gravitational lensing.

On the upside, our lives are such a speck in the face of geologic time. Everyone is so scared of Yellowstone erupting, but even if it were "immenent" what does that mean to the Earth? 10 hours? years? decades?
If we are alive for such an event, I would feel lucky I got to witness something so rare. We're all gonna die, why not cash in on an Extinction Event? Give ya something to talk about in Heaven, right?

Originally posted by bobs_uruncle

But, this is happening from space, I presume the orbiter is a low flyer, something in the range of 200 to 300 miles up.

No. The radar is on a plane. The very plane I showed you. That is the plane which did the radar survey which was used to compare to the the gravity data.

"If I saw this same mascon signal on the moon, I'd expect to see a crater around it," he said. "And when we looked at the ice-probing airborne radar, there it was."

www.dailygalaxy.com...

Chirped 52.5 - 67.5 Mhz Ice-Penetrating Radar
8 kW Peak Power

www.ig.utexas.edu...

Ice has very different dielectric properties from sea water. It is a good medium for radio frequency transmission.

Glaciers are well suited to investigation by radar because the imaginary part of the permittivity of ice is small relative to its real part; this ratio is called the loss tangent. The conductivity of ice is small at radio frequencies, so its dielectric absorption is also small.

en.wikipedia.org...

Are the left-over Nazi's hiding in it?

if this is true, then im worried
will this effect anyone do you think?

Originally posted by GoldenObserver
I wonder what that one wiped out of existence?

gah i hope not

amazing, finally confirmed after over 5 yrs of speculation

so this 50km asteroid caused the "greatest mass extinction ever seen on our planet" about 250 million yrs ago?

thx Dalke07, S&F

earth's other big craters..

newsimg.bbc.co.uk...

The Wilkes Land Anomaly revisited

www.cambridge.org...

12/29/2016
Massive ‘anomaly’ lurks beneath ice in Antarctica
nypost.com...


6/2016
The Wilkes Land Anomaly revisited
Article (PDF Available) in Antarctic Science 27(03):1-15 · June 2015
www.researchgate.net...


GRACE gravity data target possible mega-impact in north central Wilkes Land,
Antarctica
ntrs.nasa.gov...

The Vredefort Impact Crater in the South of Africa, will now be the second largest asteroid impact structure on Earth, if this turns out to be true. It was 300km in diameter, before erosion. That crater is suspected responsible for the Diamond and Gold wealth of the region, as it exposed geology that would never have been uncovered if it had not occurred. Wonder what they will find in Wilkes Land....