The asteroid that smashed into northern Australia and caused the Amelia Creek impact structure transformed mountain ridges in the blast zone.
Published Mar 20, 2025
The volcano, located on Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula, displays numerous depressions that collect meltwater during the warmer months of the year.
Published Jan 5, 2025
An impact crater in western Finland is a bucolic setting for agriculture and migratory birds—and its geometric shape resembles that of craters on other planets and moons.
Published Jan 2, 2025
New analysis of a round depression in the salty plains of the Kutch Basin revealed telltale signs of a prehistoric meteorite impact.
Published Apr 22, 2024
The 50,000-year-old crater is relatively young, and only the second discovered in China.
Published Feb 27, 2022
Famously visible from space, ring-shaped Manicouagan Lake was built at the dawn of the Space Age when Canada dammed a river to flood a Triassic-aged impact crater.
Published Feb 4, 2022
Few craters are as large, or as old, as this impact structure in southeastern Ontario, Canada.
Published Sep 20, 2021
The idyllic region of Dalarna County is the site of an ancient, powerful collision.
Published Jul 21, 2021
The lake covers part of a crater where an asteroid once slammed into Labrador, Canada.
Published Jun 30, 2021
Popigai is one of the largest and most well-preserved impact craters on Earth.
Published Jun 7, 2021
The “young” and well-preserved crater helps scientists understand cratering processes on Earth and elsewhere in the solar system.
Published May 31, 2021
The Hiawatha Impact Crater in northwest Greenland was detected through some creative detective work and innovative instruments that can see through the ice.
Published Dec 2, 2018
The world’s oldest and largest known impact structure shows some of the most extreme deformation conditions known on Earth.
Published Sep 1, 2018
An astronaut aboard the International Space Station adjusted the camera for night imaging and captured the green veils and curtains of an aurora that spanned thousands of kilometers over Canada.
Published Aug 8, 2016
Two asteroids crashed into Earth in the Carboniferous Period, leaving this distinctive pair of craters in northwestern Quebec.
Published Nov 23, 2013
Deep in the Congo, the Luizi Crater was uncovered though a combination of satellite images and field surveys.
Published Jun 24, 2012
The crater was formed by a meteor impact less than 70 million years ago, during the “Age of Dinosaurs.”
Published May 7, 2012
Bigach Impact Crater in northeastern Kazakhstan is about five million years old—long enough to be reshaped by geologic process, erosion, and human activity.
Published Oct 3, 2011
The Shoemaker impact site in Australia may have been formed as long as 1.63 billion years ago.
Published Jul 18, 2011
Acquired April 30, 2010, this natural-color image shows Goat Paddock Crater in northwestern Australia. The slightly elliptical crater spans roughly 5 kilometers.
Published May 23, 2010
The dark green Unia River highlights the circular structure of the Wembo-Nyama feature—a possible impact crater in the Democratic Republic of Congo—in this natural-color image from April 1, 2000.
Published Mar 28, 2010
Acquired February 18, 2010, this true-color image shows Lake Acraman and surrounding saltpans in South Australia. The sprawling saltpans appear off-white, and the largely bare soils appear in shades of orange and brown.
Published Feb 28, 2010
Acquired October 10, 2007, this false-color image shows Chiyli Crater in western Kazakhstan. Vegetation appears red, and clings primarily to riverbanks near the crater. Sunlight illuminates south-facing slopes, including the central peak of the crater.
Published Jan 31, 2010
Acquired on August 28, 2009, this true-color image shows the Tabun Khara Obo in southeastern Mongolia. Sunlight shines from the southeast, leaving the crater’s northern and western slopes in shadow.
Published Sep 8, 2009
Russia’s Lake El’gygytgyn rests inside a 3.6-millon-year-old meteorite crater, and preserves the longest continuous climate record in the Arctic.
Published Dec 14, 2008
Some 400 million years ago, a meteor struck Earth in what is now Canada’s Northwest Territories. The 12.5-kilometer- (7.8-mile-) wide crater is now Nicholson Lake, one of many small lakes that dot the sub-arctic, glacier-scoured landscape.
Published Mar 23, 2008
Wolfe Creek Crater is the second largest crater in the world from which meteorite fragments have been collected. Because of its excellent preservation, the crater clearly shows the classic features that result from a large meteorite striking the Earth.
Published Feb 24, 2008
Pingualuit Crater holds a lake about 267 meters (876 feet) deep. Because this lake has no connection to any other water body, inflows from other lakes cannot contaminate Pingualuit’s sediments.
Published Feb 10, 2008
