What do you get when you cross aboriginal wisdom with Google Maps? Newly discovered meteor impact craters, of course!
Duane Hamacher studies aboriginal astronomy as MacQuarie University in Sydney; already a very cool job. But things got even better when Hamacher followed up on a legend of the Arrernte Aborigines that told of a star falling to Earth in Australia's Northern Territory.
Searching Google Maps in an area known as Palm Valley, Hamacher found a suspiciously round scar in the ground (pictured left) 280 meters (919 feet) in diameter and about 30 meters (98 feet) deep. Investigation of the site -- whose aboriginal name is "Puka" -- revealed small amounts of shocked quartz, a sure sign of an impact.
The crater's weathered state and a lack of any discernible meteorite fragments suggests the crater is millions of years old, and therefore could not have been witnessed by any humans. So how did the native know that a "falling star" hit Earth here?
It could be coincidence. Earth is littered with craters; spend enough time looking at remote corners of the planet on Google Maps and you'll probably spot one, too. If astronomers follow native stories into desert in search of a crater then find one, of course they're going to holler, "the legends were true!"
But other tales from the Arrernte also tell of a "cosmic baby" falling to Earth north of Puka. And lo, there is 140 million year-old crater there. So what's going on? Were aborigines some of the world's first, best crater hunters?
That's Hamacher's theory. He thinks the native people must have watched some meteors fall to Earth and seen the craters they left. There's a group of 4,000 year-old craters nearby that would fit the bill.
What's more, Hamacher said that the rocks near the 4,000 year-old craters are called "chindu china waru chingi yabu" which translates into something like "Sun walk fire devil rock." Now, if you lived in the searing Australian outback and your feet were constantly cooked by the ground, you might come up with a lot of names for rock that involve the words "fire," "Sun," and "devil rock," as well as some other choice phrases that probably don't translate well.
But the more circumstantial evidence that piles up, that harder it is to ignore the possibility that the Arrernte knew the mark of a cosmic collision when they saw one, long before modern science ever did.
Image: Cosmos
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