This Week's Where In The Universe Challenge
Written by Nancy Atkinson
Here's this week's image for the WITU Challenge, to test your visual knowledge of the cosmos. You know what to do: take a look at this image and see if you can determine where in the universe this image is from; give yourself extra points if you can name the spacecraft responsible for the image. We’ll provide the image today, but won’t reveal the answer until tomorrow. This gives you a chance to mull over the image and provide your answer/guess in the comment section. Please, no links or extensive explanations of what you think this is — give everyone the chance to guess.
UPDATE: The answer has been posted below.
The location of this feature sounds like it could be on the Klingon homeworld, but this is actually a crater on Earth. You can find it in southeastern Mongolia, roughly halfway between Ulaanbaatar and Beijing. It is an ancient crater, called Tabun Khara Obo. This recent image was taken by the Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite, acquired August 28, 2009. The crater was first identified as a probable impact crater in 1976, although confirmation of the hypothesis only occurred decades later. Drilling at the site in 2008 revealed rock features consistent with high-speed impacts such as those caused by meteorites.
A few of you had Qapla' in answering this one. SoH 'oH intelligent.
Find out more about this image as NASA's Earth Observatory website, and check back next week for another WITU Challenge!
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September 16th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Enceladus from Cassini? (merely a guess, but this is the first time I've got to a WITU before anyone else)
September 16th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Hm… this is a good one. I'm going to say a desert on Earth, somewhere, with an eroded impact feature but I'm far from being sure. The photographer? Maybe the ISS or the Shuttle…
September 16th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
Mongolian Desert
Tabun Kara Obo
EO-1
September 16th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
A desert somewhere on Earth from the ISS.
September 16th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
Sahara Desert by the Tera satellite.
September 16th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
I am no good at these. I suspect it is Earth somewhere. The impact or volcanic crater (looks more impact) is heavily filled in with sand or dunes.
LC
September 17th, 2009 at 1:24 am
The image looked a lot whiter on my laptop lol
September 17th, 2009 at 4:59 am
hmmm, I was thinking the same as MarkW, however I will go for Dione from Cassini, to be different.
September 17th, 2009 at 6:02 am
I think its Mali in West Africa, defiantly Sahara area. Maybe a EOS image.
September 17th, 2009 at 7:04 am
There are two more semicircular features to the left of the main crater that look older and more eroded. They're a little easier to see if you zoom in. To the right, there's a small oval feature that has something green (vegetation?) on the left margin, so there seems to be some water available near the surface. When I zoomed in to 200% I saw a lot of tiny patches of green, including some all around the main crater. So I'll agree that it's a desert on Earth somewhere– I have no clue where or by who!
September 17th, 2009 at 10:54 am
Mars > Home plate MER Spirit workplace.
Taked by MRO or Odyssey orbiter.
September 17th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Kebira Crater in Chad, photo taken by Landstat
September 17th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Klingon warship `Tavan Har Obo` crashed into Proterzoic rock more than 600 million years old.
September 17th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
I think it is somewhere in Earth – taken by ISS??
September 17th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
Definitely Earth (only place that would have a single crater by itself with a lot of weathered terrain around it). No idea what mission or instrument.
September 18th, 2009 at 12:49 am
It's the Tabun-khara-obo impact crater in Mongolia, taken from the ISS. I can't recall the name of the astronaut or date of the image.
September 18th, 2009 at 7:12 am
So I get the spacecraft right but not the crater.
September 18th, 2009 at 9:07 am
Well, there's some green when I zoom into the image so it must be somewhere on Earth.
September 18th, 2009 at 10:31 am
Tabun Khara Obo, Mongolia
The Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite acquired this true-color image on August 28, 2009.
In southeastern Mongolia, roughly halfway between Ulaanbaatar and Beijing, lies this ancient crater: Tabun Khara Obo
September 19th, 2009 at 8:36 am
Amazing that you had all that detail in your head ROCA.