World’s biggest asteroid impact zone spanning 400km discovered in Australia

MOVE over the Big Pineapple and the Big Banana, Australia is now the proud owner of the world’s biggest asteroid impact zone.

The meteorite broke in two moments before it came crashing down in Earth.

AUSTRALIANS are notably known for our love of all things big.

We have the Big Pineapple, the Big Banana, the Big Prawn and the Big Murray cod.

Now, we are also the proud owners of the world’s biggest asteroid impact zone ever discovered.

Scientists from the Australian National University’s School of Archeology and Anthropology made the discovery while drilling in the Warburton Basin in Central Australia.News_Image_File: Dr Andrew Glikson.

Lead researcher Dr Andrew Glikson said the impact zone spanned 400 kilometres and was the result of a meteorite breaking in two moments before it came crashing down in Earth.

“The two asteroids must each have been over 10 kilometres across — it would have been curtains for many life species on the planet at the time,” he said.

“Large impacts like these may have had a far more significant role in the Earth’s evolution than previously thought.”

Mr Glikson said the site lacked the evidence left by other meteorite strikes, so it was unclear when the impact occurred.

“It’s a mystery — we can’t find an extinction event that matches these collisions. I have a suspicion the impact could be older than 300 million years,” he said.

Mr Glikson said the two impact zones extend through the Earth’s crust, which is about 30 kilometres thick in this area.

“There are two huge deep domes in the crust, formed by the Earth’s crust rebounding after the huge impacts, and bringing up rock from the mantle below,” he said.

The research has been published in journal Tectonophysics.News_Rich_Media: For the first time in history, scientists have observed an asteroid approaching Earth on a collision course, and tracked its path, expecting it to hit in the Sudanese desert where it exploded with the force of an atomic bomb. Produced in association with National Geographic, this documentary reveals what it takes to ready the globe for an asteroid attack.