NASA’s Earth Observatory has captured breathtaking images of the world’s largest impact crater formed in the past 100,000 years, a trace of an “attack” from extraterrestrials.

According to Science Alert, the impact crater is hidden in Xiuyan County, coastal province of Liaoning, Northeast China. After being recorded by NASA’s Earth Observatory, in July 2021, a team of scientists approached the scene.

Survey results show that a geological structure in the Lesser Xing’an Mountains has a structure like a depression created by a strong impact from above: a clear and sharp, crescent-shaped impact crater .

According to the article published in Meteoritics and Planetary Science, the impact crater placed on Yilan has a diameter of about 1.85 km. The alien attack occurred 46,000 to 53,000 years ago, according to radiocarbon dating of coal and sediment from the site conducted by NASA.

To collect sediment, scientists drilled a core in the center of the impact crater.

This drill core also revealed that 100 meters deep below the crater is a slab of burned granite nearly 320 meters thick, a special type of granite made up of many pieces of rock stuck together like a matrix. That is the consequence that a meteorite left behind when it “bombed” the ground, causing rock to melt and then crystallize again.

Many teardrop-shaped pieces of meteorite glass were also collected in this deposit.

Part of the southern rim of Yilan impact crater is lost, so the geological structure seen from above is shaped like a crescent, a rare type of impact crater on Earth, according to Dr. Chen Ming from the Institute of Geochemistry. Guangzhou, research team member.

Previously, the impact crater holding the record for the largest in the past 100,000 years was Meteor Crater in Arizona with a diameter of 1.2 km, but it was clearly beaten by Yilan.