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Asteroid Strike in Canada may have been Hottest Impact on Earth

NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.

This asteroid strike 36m years ago apparently heated the surface rocks to the hottest known temperature ever recorded, producing cubic zirconia minerals! The impact crater was originally twice the size of the current lake, 17 miles across, and the rim and center uplift are still visible even after several ice ages have glacially eroded the site. Read more by Adam Voiland on NASA Earth Observatory