CWL

An illustration of the Chicxulub impact crater in the Yucatán Peninsula.

Located on the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, many scientists believe that the meteorite that left this crater caused or contributed to the extinction of the dinosaurs. Estimates of its actual diameter range from 106 to a whooping 186 miles (170 to 300 kilometers), which if proved right could mean it’s the biggest.

Big Crater Down South

A large crater can be seen in the southern hemisphere of Saturn’s two-tone moon Iapetus.

Lit terrain seen here is on the trailing hemisphere of Iapetus (914 miles, or 1,471 kilometers across), a moon whose leading hemisphere is extremely dark and whose trailing hemisphere is as white as snow. This view looks toward the moon’s south polar region, which is visible near the lower limb of the moon. The south pole itself is in the unilluminated area immediately to the left of the terminator.

Northern Odysseus

The Cassini spacecraft takes a detailed look at the northern part of the huge Odysseus Crater on Saturn’s moon Tethys.

The crater dominates the left half of this view of Tethys (660 miles, or 1,062 kilometers across). This view is centered on terrain at 49 degrees north latitude, 111 degrees west longitude. See Epic Odysseus for a wider view of Odysseus Crater.

Massive Meteorite Crater Found in Canadian Arctic

Image: A river gorge cut into the tundra of northwestern Victoria Island shows steeply tilted sedimentary rock strata. These deformed beds represent the central uplift caused by rebound after the meteor impact that formed the Prince Albert crater. Credit: University of Saskatchewan, Brian Pratt

Side Note: We’re sending rovers to other planets to discover their secret and yet here we have Earth still providing some of its own. Love new discoveries like these!

Researchers in Canada’s western Arctic have found evidence of a crater that formed when a huge meteorite slammed into Earth millions of years ago.

Measuring about 15 miles (25 kilometers) across, the formation was named the Prince Albert impact crater after the peninsula where it was discovered. Researchers don’t know exactly when it was created, but evidence suggests the crater is between 130 million and 350 million years old, according to a statement from the University of Saskatchewan.

Meteors are fragments of asteroids or comets that enter Earth’s atmosphere at high speeds; most are small, some as tiny as a grain of sand, so they discintegrate in the air, and only rarely are they large enough to make it to Earth’s surface. When meteors slam into Earth, they are called meteorites.

Oldest Impact Crater on Earth Discovered

The world’s oldest meteorite crater —a giant impact zone more than 62 miles wide — has been found in Greenland, scientists say.

Scientists think it was formed 3 billion years ago by a meteorite 19 miles (30 kilometer) wide — which, if it hit Earth today, would wipe out all higher life. The crater is so wide that it would reach the edge of space 62 miles (100 km) above Earth if stood on end.

The crater was “discovered” at an office in Copenhagen by scientist Adam Garde as he pored over maps showing nickel and platinum abundance in the target region of West Greenland. Garde, a senior research scientist with the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, saw a both simple and extreme explanation for several strange geological features in this region: an impact from a meteorite that may have contained valuable metals.

Mercury Craters Look Like Mickey Mouse in NASA Photo

A NASA spacecraft has captured a spectacular photo of Mercury craters arranged in a shape that looks just like Disney’s iconic cartoon mouse.

Aristarchus Moon Crater in 3D

Spherule From Earth’s Moon

Credit: Timothy Culler (UCB) et al., Apollo 11 Crew, NASA

How did this spherule come to be on the Moon? When a meteorite strikes the Moon, the energy of the impact melts some of the splattering rock, a fraction of which might cool into tiny glass beads.

Many of these glass beads were present in lunar soil samples returned to Earth by the Apollo missions. Pictured above is one such glass spherule that measures only a quarter of a millimeter across. This spherule is particularly interesting because it has been victim to an even smaller impact.

A miniature crater is visible on the upper left, surrounded by a fragmented area caused by the shockwaves of the small impact. By dating many of these impacts, astronomers can estimate the history of cratering on our Moon.

Dazzling Satellite Views of Vast Moon Crater

Imaged Above: Seen at sunrise, the walls of Aristarchus glow brightly. Arrows in this image indicate the approximate edges of the large panorama. Image: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University

This towering silver wall is one small section of the moon’s enormous Aristarchus crater.

One of the brightest features on the moon’s surface, Aristarchus can easily be spotted with the naked eye, though even modest binoculars will greatly enhance the view.

Going one better, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter snapped this spectacular image as it swooped down to just 16 miles above the lunar surface, or just twice as high as commercial airliners fly on Earth.

Twice as deep as the Grand Canyon and 26 miles wide, Aristarchus was created when an asteroid hit the moon approximately 450 million years ago. The impact excavated deep into the lunar crust and produced dark clumps and streamers of pyroclastic ash—glasses formed during fiery eruptions similar to those in the Hawaiian Islands. Ledges seen on the wall are topped with sagging blocks of pre-impact lunar crust.

Stickney Crater

Stickney Crater, the largest crater on the martian moon Phobos, is named for Chloe Angeline Stickney Hall, mathematician and wife of astronomer Asaph Hall.

Credit: HiRISE, MRO, LPL (U. Arizona), NASA

Mars Rover at Victoria Crater Imaged from Orbit

Credit: HiRISE, MRO, LPL (U. Arizona), NASA

Mars Rover at Victoria Crater Imaged from Orbit

Credit: HiRISE, MRO, LPL (U. Arizona), NASA

Satellites See Evidence of One-Two Asteroid Punches on Mars

New images from two Mars-orbiting satellites capture times when the planet was pummeled by at least two meteorites at once.

The slug-shaped crater above, photographed on Aug. 4, 2010 by ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft, was probably carved by a chain of projectiles coming in at a shallow angle. The 48-mile-long crater has no name, but it lies in Mars’ heavily cratered southern highlands, just south of a large crater called the Huygens basin.

Astronomers have speculated that similarly oblong basins were formed by one oblique impact or by volcanic flows. But the shape of the material tossed out of this crater in the initial impact, called the ejecta blanket, suggests the unnamed scar came from a double punch. The blanket shows two distinct lobes like butterfly wings, hinting that each blob was excavated by a different incoming rock.

Opportunity at Santa Maria Crater

Celebrating 7 years on the surface of the Red Planet, Mars exploration rover Opportunity now stands near the rim of 90 meter wide Santa Maria crater. Remarkably, Opportunity and its fellow rover Spirit were initially intended for a 3 month long primary mission. Still exploring, the golf cart-sized robot and shadow (far right) appear in the foreground of this panoramic view of its current location. The mosaic was constructed using images from the rover’s navigation camera. On its 7 year anniversary, Opportunity can boast traversing a total of 26.7 kilometers along the martian surface. After investigating Santa Maria crater, controllers plan to have Opportunity resume a long-term trek toward Endurance crater, a large, 22 kilometer diameter crater about 6 kilometers from Santa Maria. During coming days, communication with the rover will be more difficult as Mars moves close to alignment with the Sun as seen from planet Earth’s perspective.

Credit: Mars Exploration Rover Mission, NASA, JPL, Cornell; Image Processing: Marco Di Lorenzo, Kenneth Kremer

Galactic Bridge over Crater Lake

Copyright: Wally Pacholka