Ancient Asteroid Made Jell-O of Earth at Chicxulub Crater in Mexico's Yucatan Sat. Note the inner ring. It then collapsed down and out to produce the inner ring.
Vertical scale is enlarged.
Animation courtesy of Gareth Collins When a giant space rock slammed into Earth 65 million years ago near the present-day village of Chicxulub on the Yucatan Peninsula, not only did it wipe out a lot of dinosaurs, it left behind a huge crater and, inside that pock, an even bigger mystery. But scientists found the crater a decade ago using seismic monitoring equipment designed to hunt for oil. The collision A comet or asteroid the size of a small city rocked the planet, sending giant tsunamis across the ocean and earthquakes reverberating around the globe. It also turned much of the Yucatan into mush, scientists suspect, causing rock to behave like a thick fluid. The animation of the Chicxulub event shows how the whole thing might have happened, right up to the part where the ring mysteriously solidifies, like terrestrial Jell-O in some standard crater mold.