{"id":418975,"date":"2010-03-11T15:59:59","date_gmt":"2010-03-11T20:59:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/badastronomy\/?p=12852"},"modified":"2010-03-11T15:59:59","modified_gmt":"2010-03-11T20:59:59","slug":"deforestation-reveals-an-old-scar-bad-astronomy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/418975","title":{"rendered":"Deforestation reveals an old scar | Bad Astronomy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The BBC is reporting that <a rel=\"nofollow\"  href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/2\/hi\/science\/nature\/8526093.stm\">a previously unknown potential impact crater has surfaced in the Congo<\/a>. This region was heavily forested, hiding the crater, <a rel=\"nofollow\"  href=\"http:\/\/rainforests.mongabay.com\/congo\/deforestation.html\">but recent widespread deforestation<\/a> has revealed the ancient impact scar.<\/p>\n<p>Obviously, I&#8217;m conflicted about this. <\/p>\n<p>If this is an impact crater (it has not yet been confirmed), it&#8217;s about 40 km (25 miles) across, making it one of the largest seen on the Earth. We haven&#8217;t been hit by a big asteroid in a long time, and erosion has erased most of the impact craters. There&#8217;s a picture of the crater on that link above, and the crater is obviously very old.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s fascinating to know that such a large feature can be hidden at all, but it&#8217;s sad indeed on how it got uncovered. I can hope no one would be so crass as to suggest we should continue to deforest our planet in hopes of finding more treasures, but I have seen far worse things suggested to support unrestrained mining, drilling, and polluting. I&#8217;m glad something good came of this horrific practice, but all things told, I think I&#8217;d rather it had remained tucked away among thousands of square kilometers of trees. <\/p>\n<p><em>Tip o&#8217; the Whipple Shield to Ted Judah.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"nofollow\"  href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/XtYq5WqFHEHlHMcxy1JxUMSH7h8\/0\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/XtYq5WqFHEHlHMcxy1JxUMSH7h8\/0\/di\" border=\"0\" ismap><\/a><br \/>\n<a rel=\"nofollow\"  href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/XtYq5WqFHEHlHMcxy1JxUMSH7h8\/1\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/XtYq5WqFHEHlHMcxy1JxUMSH7h8\/1\/di\" border=\"0\" ismap><\/a><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/BadAstronomyBlog\/~4\/03_VAoqRyoE\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/DiscoverMag\/~4\/LXbAQGlYeZI\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The BBC is reporting that a previously unknown potential impact crater has surfaced in the Congo. This region was heavily forested, hiding the crater, but recent widespread deforestation has revealed the ancient impact scar. Obviously, I&#8217;m conflicted about this. If this is an impact crater (it has not yet been confirmed), it&#8217;s about 40 km [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":641,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-418975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/641"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418975\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}