Where is the Chicxulub crater located and how large is it?

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Illustration showing various dinosaur species drawn to scale and grouped by geologic era: Late Cretaceous, Early Cretaceous, Jurassic, and Triassic. Dinosaurs range from large species like Brachiosaurus and Tyrannosaurus to smaller ones like Velociraptor and Compsognathus, with a human silhouette included for size comparison. Measurement bars at the bottom indicate 1 meter and 3 feet for scale reference. — dinosaur A selection of dinosaurs grouped by the geologic interval in which they lived.

The Chicxulub crater is located off the northern coastline of the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. Because the impact occurred in the water, the crater is not visible on the Earth's surface and is partially buried underwater and covered by rainforest.12

The crater measures approximately 180 kilometers (about 110–112 miles) in diameter, making it one of the largest known impact structures on Earth. It was formed about 66 million years ago by an asteroid estimated to be 10–15 km (6–9 miles) in diameter.123