The Earth is bombarded by thousands of micrometeorites every day, but only once in tens of millions of years does an asteroid large enough arrive to leave a lasting mark on the geography of a region and the geology of its underlying rocks. The Popigai Crater in northern Siberia, located about 550 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle, is the result of one such impact event.
The Popigai Crater was formed about 35 million years ago when an asteroid, estimated to be 5 to 8 kilometers in diameter, slammed into what is now the Taymyr Peninsula of northern Siberia, Russia. The impact instantly melted some 1,750 cubic kilometers of rock, about half of which was ejected into the atmosphere. Some of this material travelled high into the air and landed thousands of kilometers away on other continents, leaving behind a crater roughly 100 kilometers wide and 8 to 10 kilometers deep.
A digital elevation model shows the topography of the crater and the surrounding area. Credit: NASA
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