An attacker from space crashed into the Sahara 345 million years ago, completely destroying a land area the size of a city.
An analysis from the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI – USA) shows that the mysterious eye-shaped structure that satellites have captured in the middle of the Sahara Desert is the vestige of an ancient “space killer”.
It is an extremely spooky structure with a clear pupil in the middle of the desert in northern Chad, inside the “white” are sand dunes that are constantly shifting, making this eye look like it is moving.
Since being clearly captured from space in 2013, scientists have been trying to understand what it is, as well as track changes over time.
The latest results have confirmed that it is an ancient impact crater up to 12.6 km wide, with numerous “migrating dunes” inside that can move up to 30m per year.
The impact crater is made up of two rings, which give it the appearance of a large, glaring eye of a predator: the inner ring has a central hill or unidentified raised structure that looks like a pupil; the outer ring looks like an eyelid.
The rings currently stand up to 100m above the surrounding ground, but that is because they have been eroded over time. Their original height may have been considerably greater.
Experts believe the structure formed around 345 million years ago and was likely created by a meteorite about 600m in diameter.
At that size, it would have been what modern astronomers call a “city killer asteroid,” powerful enough to completely obliterate a city if it hit Earth today.
At 345 million years ago, humans were still far from being around. However, the already thriving ecosystem at the time was certainly devastated by this literal “fall from the sky” disaster.
The massive space rock was large enough to cause widespread damage across northern Africa and may even have had global climate effects.
It’s not unusual for sand dunes to move in the desert, but the complex structure created by the impact affected the way the dunes moved, adding to the overall eerie appearance.
The discovery of similar terrible “scars” across the Earth’s surface has motivated space scientists to design and upgrade planetary defense missions, because such attacks could repeat themselves at any time.
