Hidden under over a mile of ice, NASA has discovered a massive crater, the second in months to be found, in Greenland.
The 22-mile-wide crater appears to be larger and older than a previously uncovered one at the Hiawatha impact site. The new crater is located about 183 kilometers away from the Hiawatha Glacier.
Joseph MacGregor, a glaciologist leading a NASA team to scan Greenland for these phenomena, says an impact event within the past 2.6 million years, like an asteroid slamming into Earth, could be the cause of the crater or even both craters. One steroid could have broken into two while entering Earth’s atmosphere before crashing into what is now known as Greenland.
Although some 200 impact craters around our planet have been identified, the two Greenland craters are the only two to have been discovered under a sheet of ice.
According to Motherboard, both sites were found using aerial footage and satellite imagery.
“The possibility of additional subglacial craters beneath the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets should be investigated, as our discovery further emphasizes the ability of ice sheets to both bury and preserve evidence of terrestrial impacts,” researchers wrote in the study.
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