Crater Creation: Big Bangs Through the Millennia

Map of all the confirmed impact craters on Earth.

Aorounga is a meteorite impact crater in Chad, estimated to be less than 345 million years old. The crater is accompanied by two nearby circular features revealed by Space Shuttle SIR-C radar.

Gosses Bluff, located in Australia's southern Northern Territory, is thought to be about 143 million years old There's split opinion about its genesis. Some scientists believe it was formed by an asteroid while others argue that it was created by an underwater, volcanic eruption.

The impact crater Tycho on the Moon.

The Manicouagan Crater, located in the Cote-Nord region of Quebec, Canada, is one of the world's oldest known craters. It's believed to have been created after an asteroid slammed into the Earth roughly 215 million years ago.

Western Australia's Wolfe Creek Crater was formed about 300,000 years ago during the Pleistocene era

Arizona's Meteor Crater is one of the best-preserved meteorite crater s in the United States. A giant meteor is estimated to have formed the crater about created about 50,000 years ago. Interestingly, it was only in 1960, when Eugene Shoemaker presented evidence confirming an earlier hypothesis offered in the 19th century by mining magnate Daniel Barringer that scientists agreed the crater was formed by extraterrestrial impact.

A view of the Copernicus crater taken from lunar orbit by Apollo 12. The crater is estimated to be around 800 million years old.

Callisto, a moon of the planet Jupiter, was discovered in 1610 by Galileo Galilei. The impact crater diameters seen here ranges from 0.1 kilometer in diameter to over 100 kilometers, There are an estimated 150 craters on Callisto.

Enki Catena, a crater chain on the Jupiter satellite Ganymede, is about 100 miles long. Scientists believe it was likely formed after a comet was destroyed by gravity pull when it got too close to Jupiter.

Golubkina, a crater on Venus, is about 19 miles wide and named after Russian sculptor Ann Golubkina. According to a report by NASA, "the smoothness of the floor may be due to pounding of volcanic lava flows in the crater floor. The rough, blocky morphology of the crater ejecta and the sharp terraced crater wall suggest that this feature is relatively young."