International Asteroid Day

While it is unclear exactly how long asteroids have been floating around in the solar system, scientists believe that they go back tens of millions of years. They can range from small to large – 10 meters across to more than 500 meters across. Added together, the total mass of all current asteroids in our solar systems would be less in size than the Earth’s moon.

Scientists estimate that approximately 65 million years ago, an enormous asteroid fell to the earth in the area that is presently Yucatan, Mexico. This is referred to as the Chicxulub impact and some scientists think this may be what contributed to the extinction of the dinosaurs. This asteroid may have been the size of some small countries and left a crater that was somewhere around 150 km in size where a rim of mountains the size of the Himalayas formed around the edge.