What comes to mind when you hear the word crater? We all know that the surface of the Moon has many craters. Even our solar system was built on impacts of objects in space. Earth has also been hit by several asteroids and other objects creating craters on its surface. But it should be noted that not every object heading towards the Earth reaches its ground mainly due to the atmospheric layers. Here are some of the largest craters that hit the Earth’s surface. But before that it is important to know what is an impact crater? According to information provided by Space Place, NASA, “An impact crater forms when an object such as an asteroid or meteor falls onto the surface of a larger solid object such as a planet or moon. To form a true impact crater, this object must be traveling extremely fast—many thousands of miles per hour! When a solid object hits something at these extremely fast speeds, it forms a crater no matter how hard or tough it is.”

Here are some of the famous impact craters on Earth

Evidence for really large impacts – like the Arizona meteor crater – is harder to find on Earth. The impact history of our home world has been largely erased by weather and water, or buried under lava, rock, or ice. Despite this, we still find new giant craters occasionally, NASA said. In 2019, a NASA glaciologist discovered a possible impact crater buried under more than a mile of ice in northwestern Greenland. This followed the finding, announced in November 2018, of a 19-mile-wide crater beneath the Hiawatha Glacier — the first meteorite impact crater ever discovered beneath Earth’s ice sheets. Although these impact sites in northwest Greenland are only 114 miles apart, they do not currently appear to have formed at the same time. Also read: This plasma loop in the Sun is HUGE. never seen before – such a great distance between the Earth and the Moon If the second crater, which is more than 22 miles wide, is ultimately confirmed to be the result of a meteorite impact, it would be the 22nd largest impact crater found on Earth. “We’ve investigated the Earth in many different ways, from the ground, from the air and from space — it’s exciting that discoveries like this are still possible,” said Joe McGregor, a glaciologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. , who participated. in both findings.

Craters on Earth

  1. Meteor Crater: Meteor Crater (also known as Barringer Crater) in Arizona was the first crater discovered to have been formed by an extraterrestrial impact. It was formed 50,000 years ago by a meteorite that may have been up to about 150 feet wide and traveling at more than 28,000 mph, according to information provided by NASA.
  2. Vredefort Crater: Vredefort Crater in South Africa is the largest known impact crater on Earth—almost 200 miles wide. At over 2 billion years old, it is also one of the oldest. Due to erosion over this long period of time, the crater is a little hard to see.