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"gewg_" writes:

Long ago, a rock 6 miles across crashed into Earth and left a hole 12 miles deep and 240 miles wide.

El Reg reports

Australia has been identified as home to the largest asteroid impact crater ever found, more than twice the size of the Chicxulub crater in Mexico often attributed with wiping out the dinosaurs.

The new find in the Warburton Basin in Central Australia is a stunning 400 km-wide impact zone from a huge asteroid that broke into two pieces just before it hit. So big was the impact that it fractured the Earth's crust to a depth of around 20 km, according to a paper published in Tectonophysics .

The Australian National University says it's the largest impact crater ever discovered--the Chicxulub crater measures 180 km across. (108 mi) [... however, the] exact date of the impact remains unclear[...]

[Andrew Gilkson, PhD of the Australian National University says] "we can't find an extinction event that matches these collisions. I have a suspicion the impact could be older than 300 million years".