It was long believed that the Redford crater in South
Africa was the epicenter of the largest asteroid impact to
ever occur on Earth.
The falling space rock that caused it is thought to
have been around 9 miles wide,
causing a 186 mile wide crater.
However, now experts say that another mega impact zone may
have just been discovered in Australia,
overshadowing that one by a magnitude.
The impact structure went undiscovered until now because it's deep
underground,
buried under NSW. They call it a structure rather than
a crater.
Because when an asteroid hits,
it creates a central uplifted section,
which the Conversation reports is similar to what happens when
you drop something into water.
As Newton's third law comes into play.
The newly discovered structure, they say,
is some 323 miles wide,
nearly twice the size of the one in South Africa.
And they say it could have occurred much more recently,
around 444,000,000 years ago. Experts say they are basing that
estimation on an extinction event that happened around then,
a mass dying off of species that was twice the
scale of the one that killed the dinosaurs.
But they had it could have also been created.
Much earlier, kicking off the Cambrian explosion and was in
some way responsible for bringing life to Earth.