Google earth accidentally discovered it in 2010

"Mount Kamel": The rare meteorite that struck the western desert five thousand years ago

From the depth of space,and millions of miles away it came,and from the midst of the eternal darkness it set off,and towards the orbit of that populated blue planet it goes to penetrate its gravity domain ,and hit it in a terrible accident creating a giant crater that appears so far in the middle of Egypt's desert.The meteorite of "Mount Kamel" described as the rarest meteorite ever that have penetrated the earth . Five thousand years ago, the meteorite have been through the space and made a way between the stars to find its new home in the middle of  Egypt's western desert leaving behind a huge crater and millions of fragments  which are one of Egypt's most important geological assets of modern era.


In 2010, an egyptian geological mission found a huge crater  that confirms the impact of a giant meteorite in this region, an italian researcher called" Finchenzo DE Michelie"was the first to see that crater, he was the former coordinator of the natural history museum in Milano .When he was scanning and analyzing Google earth images,He found it east of Owainat ,northeast of the New Valley, two kilometers away  north of the egyptian-sudanese borders,It is also 116 kilometres away from the Libyan borders.

Next to the meteorite crater , the joint scientific team found 5,000 and 178 fragments of this meteorite which  weigh between one kilogram  and 35 kilograms which  totally  weigh  800 kilograms, but the largest sample  is about 83 kilograms , Which is  currently in the geological museum.  

The geological studies later confirmed that the discovered meteorite weighed 10 tons ,It consists of 90% iron , 10% nickel and it moved from the asteroid region between Jupiter and Mars, Its speed was about 12,000 kilometers per hour before clashing . The crater is one of fifteen similar craters spread on earth ,But this one is  distinctive as its current environmental condition is very good unlike her peers' condition all over the world, Its environmental condition  exists only on the moon and Mars, Its metal components are the basic elements of the center of the earth and the other planets of the solar system too,The study of those components is therefore of great importance to the study of the subsoil and planetary composition .


The diameter of the crater created by the meteorite impact ,Which is located south of El Jalf Al-Kabir nearby the Sudanese borders, Is about forty five metres and sixteen metres deep .It's called "Kamel crater" according to "Mount Kamel" which is nearby it.The evidences indicated that the impact was at an oblique angle not a right angle.Scientists believe that the meteorite lump did not disunite into the aerospace but exploded when it reached the ground,That's why that big crater was formed .

In 2012, the Ministry of Environment declared "Mount Kamel "as a natural preserve due to its importance  and being at the top of the sandstone made of quartz ,Which dates back to the Cretaceous period,Northward it topped by a limited layer of sand , Below it are the base rocks of the pre-Cambrian era,The area is surrounded by many mountains and paths of ancient dry valleys belongs to prehistoric human villages, Which makes the region bear a lot of historical, archaeological and geological evidences ,It also gives the region a unique aesthetic appearance.

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