Britannica
Sources used in this answer
How large was the object thought to have formed the Chicxulub crater?
Created from Britannica articles
using AI.
AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
Meteorite crater
Four impact craters of the same size (30 km [20 miles] in diameter) imaged by spacecraft on different solid bodies of the solar system and reproduced at the same scale. They are (clockwise from upper left) Golubkhina crater on Venus, Kepler crater on the Moon, an unnamed crater on Jupiter's moon Ganymede, and an unnamed crater on Mars. The images are oriented such that the craters appear illuminated from the left; the Venusian crater is imaged in radar wavelengths, the others in visible light.
The object thought to have formed the Chicxulub crater is estimated to have been approximately 10 to 15 kilometers (6 to 9 miles) in diameter.12
This asteroid is believed to have collided with Earth about 66 million years ago at a speed of 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) per second. The resulting impact crater, located off the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, measures roughly 180 kilometers (110–112 miles) across.213