Beijing Daily Client | Reporter Wang Hongliang
was born in Friedburg Crater , 2 billion years ago.
The asteroid that caused the dinosaur to extinction is not the largest incoming asteroid in the history of Earth. The latest research shows that an asteroid that hit Earth 2 billion years ago may be larger, with a diameter of between 20 and 25 kilometers.
This asteroid collided with the earth to form a huge crater, named the Friedburg Crater, which is located about 120 kilometers southwest of Johannesburg, South Africa, and has a diameter of about 159 kilometers. It is smaller than the Hikthurub crater in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, which has a diameter of about 180 kilometers and was formed by asteroids that hit Earth at the end of the Cretaceous period 66 million years ago, which led to the extinction of dinosaurs.
But the impact craters will slowly corrode over time, which makes them smaller. Latest estimates suggest that the Friedburg crater initially had a diameter of 250 to 280 kilometers when it formed 2 billion years ago. Therefore, despite being smaller than today's Chicthulub crater, the Friedburg crater is still considered the largest impact crater on Earth.
The study, published in the recently published Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, researchers recalculated the size of the Friedburg asteroid and found that the destructive space rock could have a diameter of between 20 and 25 kilometers. Natalie Allen, the first author of the study, is a doctoral student in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins University in the United States.
Based on a correction to the original size of the Friedburg crater, new research shows that the Friedburg asteroid may be about twice the size of the "dinosaur killer" 66 million years ago, with a diameter of about 12 kilometers. The authors of the study said the Friedburg asteroid may move much faster, so its impact will be even worse—probably the largest energy release event in Earth's history.
Unlike the Hicthulub Crater, the Friedburg Crater does not leave any historical records of large-scale species extinctions and forest fires. This is because 2 billion years ago there were only single-cell life forms on Earth and there were no trees, but the impact of this collision on the global climate may be more extensive than the Hicthulub Crater. However, since the impact event occurred long ago, there is a lack of evidence for the impact of asteroids on Earth.
Image source: Visual China
