Astrophysicists Vahe Gurzadyan from the Yerevan Physics Institute in Armenia and Sverre Aarseth from the University of Cambridge in the UK, discovered an unrecorded crater that raises the possibility that the biblical mountain Ararat was struck by a meteorite.

A British scientific publication OBSERVATORY will soon publish an article about the discovery.  However, after appearing on the University Cornell website it had already spread around the world.

Mount Ararat is an ancient, isolated volcano in eastern Turkey near the borders with Armenia.

The northern and western slopes of the mountain are closed to public but somehow the two physicists gained access.  

At an altitude of 2100 metre, at coordinates 39˚ 47’ 30’’N, 44˚ 14’ 40’’E, they found a well-preserved and previously unrecorded crater some 70 metres across. Gurzadyan and Aarseth think that it is the result of a meteorite impact. They rule out a glacial origin on the grounds that 2100 metres is well below the glacier line.

Gurzadyan and Aarseth publish their account with the intention of attracting interest so that the crater can be properly classified.