Software to discover the meteorite craters

Researchers at the University of Alberta announced Tuesday they have developed new software to identify the hundreds of craters created by the impact of meteorites on the Earth's surface but are hidden by the landscape. "This technology can be used to discover the hundreds of craters from meteorites that anywhere in the world, are hidden by trees but were photographed without knowing when aerial reconnaissance," said in a summary of the study Christ Herd , A professor at the University of Alberta. With the new program, the scientist was able to remove trees and foliage on aerial photos taken by a forestry company and confirm the discovery of a small crater near the town of Whitecourt, 200 km west Edmonton (Calgary, western Canada). Once the vegetation removed, these images have revealed a crater bowl-shaped 36 meters in diameter, made 1100 years ago, and now recognized as the youngest crater of Canada. Observations on the Moon and Mars suggests that a meteorite will crash every 10 years on Earth, underlines the study. However, only 175 craters have been listed on the blue planet, five of which have a diameter less A100 meters and less than ten have been trained there are fewer than 10,000 years. "By discovering and analyzing more craters, current theories on the number of meteorites that hit Earth in the past and the frequency of future impacts will change," said Mr. Herd, whose research was published Tuesday in the newspaper Geology.