The famous Barringer Crater in Arizona, USA, may be the “creation” of a warped sphere made up of thousands of pieces held together by gravitational interactions.
According to a description in the scientific journal Physical Review E, you can imagine the “concave sphere” that formed Barringer Crater as similar to a baseball dented by the impact of a bat.
However, this extraterrestrial attacker does not appear bizarre due to a collision but because of its unique structure.
Barringer Crater in Arizona may be the “creation” of a concave sphere striking Earth 46,000 years ago – (Photo: Stephan Hoerold).
This description is based on research about scattered impact craters on our planet. By comparing various forms of large and small craters, scientists determined that sharp-edged, large yet not too deep craters like Barringer Crater must have been created by something special.
It is not a solid meteorite spinning rapidly; instead, it is formed by thousands of fragments, “stuck” together by gravitational interactions, spinning slower, and due to a relatively loose connection, it has the shape of a concave sphere.
This multi-fragment sphere not only exists in theory. Bennu is an example.
The recent NASA mission OSIRIS-REx collected samples from the asteroid Bennu, confirming that not all asteroids and smaller meteorite forms are solid; they can consist of smaller rocks bound together by gravitational interactions.
Dr. Erick Franklin from the University of Campinas (Brazil), co-author of the aforementioned study, stated that understanding the rotation and aggregation of asteroids will help provide insights into how different impact craters form, as well as how material disperses after a collision.
According to Live Science, models indicate that because a portion of the energy from the non-solid asteroid during a collision is used to disperse fragments from the object itself, it does not excavate as deeply into the Earth as other impact craters.
In addition to Barringer Crater, several other craters may be constituted from this unique material, including Flynn Creek Crater in Tennessee, USA.
These findings are also incredibly valuable for Earth defense missions that many space agencies worldwide, including NASA, are focusing on.
Knowing the structure of objects that have the potential to collide with Earth and how each type will impact upon collision will aid in designing missions to effectively destroy or redirect them.
Barringer Crater, also known as Meteor Crater, is a deep crater with a diameter of 1.3 km and a depth of 174 m located in the desert, 30 km west of Winslow, Arizona, USA. |
