For decades after scientists realized an asteroid had killed the dinosaurs, they had one big problem: they couldn’t find the crater. An asteroid that wiped out a quarter of all life should have left an enormous scar on the planet. Where was it?
It turned out the crater was hiding under the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, partly buried under younger rock, partly underwater. Geologists searching for oil discovered it in the 1970s, but it took another decade for anyone to connect the dots and realize: this is the dinosaur crater. It’s now called Chicxulub, after a Mexican town that sits right at its center.
The crater is 110 miles across - about the same size as the entire country of Wales. Even today, you can see a partial ring of natural sinkholes (“cenotes”) tracing its edge from space. The wound on the planet is healing, but it’s still there.
