Chicxulub Crater

asteroid impact · Mexico · dinosaurs · space geology

Monster space rock. An asteroid about 10 kilometers wide (almost as wide as a mountain is tall) smashed into the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico 66 million years ago. Scientists believe this impact helped wipe out the dinosaurs.

Huge underground crater. The crater is about 200 kilometers across, which is roughly the distance from one side of a big city to another, multiplied by many times. It's buried under about 1 kilometer of rock and soil, so you can't see it from the surface.

Special for scientists. Chicxulub is the only really large impact crater on Earth that still has its peak ring (a ring of raised rock in the middle) completely intact. This makes it perfect for scientists to study and understand how these cosmic collisions work.

Ancient giant crash. This impact happened 66 million years ago and was one of the most powerful events in Earth's history. The explosion would have thrown so much dust and ash into the air that it blocked out the sun for months.

Named after a village. The crater is named after Chicxulub Pueblo, a small community in Mexico that sits right above it. People lived there for hundreds of years without knowing about the enormous crater buried beneath their feet.