Earth's oldest known impact crater formed when a meteorite slammed into what is now Australia about 3 billion years ago — 470 million years later than scientists previously claimed, a new study suggests.
The impact crater, known as the North Pole Dome crater, is located in Western Australia's Pilbara region, which is home to some of the planet's oldest rocks. It remains a record-breaking structure, beating the world's next-oldest known meteorite impact crater — the Yarrabubba impact structure, also in Western Australia — by roughly 800 million years.
