Advertisement

"Amateur" geologist finds a South American crater

Discover how satellite imagery helped identify a hidden terrestrial crater in a unique citizen science project.

Newsletter

Sign up for our email newsletter for the latest science news

Sign Up

This is very cool: a guy got a grant to comb through satellite imagery to look for terrestrial craters, and found one hidden in plain sight! The Planetary Society has all the details. The man who found it studied geology in college, but is now a systems analyst! This is a perfect example of citizen science. There's too much real estate -- on Earth and in the sky -- for what we normally think of as geologists and astronomers to examine carefully. And this shows there's plenty of room for "amateurs" to help out... and that word always makes me laugh. I know a lot of amateur astronomers who know far more than I do about pointing a telescope. You'll almost always find that at their borders, most definitions are pretty fuzzy. Tip o' the Whipple shield to David Kessler.

Stay Curious

JoinOur List

Sign up for our weekly science updates

View our Privacy Policy

SubscribeTo The Magazine

Save up to 40% off the cover price when you subscribe to Discover magazine.

Subscribe
Advertisement

0 Free Articles