The largest meteorite crater on Earth has been discovered.

Scientists believe that the underwater cracks in Australia are the remnants of the largest crater ever created when a meteorite struck Earth.

A simulation of an asteroid hurtling towards Earth. Photo: NASA

Experts have discovered traces of an impact zone more than 400 km in diameter at a depth of 1.9 m in the Warburton Basin, near the border of South Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory. The impact is believed to have occurred more than 300 million years ago.

Researcher Andrew Glikson of the Australian National University suggests that these structures may be from a large meteorite that split in two. Each split celestial body is more than 10 km across.

The impact crater has long since disappeared, however traces of two cracks were found underground during deep drilling for geothermal exploration. "Such large impacts could have played a significant role in the Earth's evolution," Glikson told the Telegraph yesterday.

The research team is currently unable to identify any specific extinction event linked to these impacts. Glikson considers this a mystery. Chicxulub is a meteorite crater buried beneath Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula, associated with the extinction of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.

According to VnExpress