The Biggest, most destructive, asteroids to Strike Earth - Listed

Earth has been around for more than 4.5 billion years and in the course of its history it has been hit by asteroids at least 190 times.

But among them, the biggest three were capable of destroying life and causing an ice age that would have tragic consequences for humans.

One thing to note here is that their size cannot be calculated directly because the asteroid no longer exists.

That’s why scientists measure the size of the asteroid based on the size of the impact crater created by it.

At third position is the Sudbury Basin in Canada.  This impact crater was made 1.8 billion years ago by an asteroid between 9-14 kilometers wide.

At second position is the Chicxulub crater in Mexico. This was the dinosaur killer asteroid which hit the Earth 66 million years ago.

The crater is 180 kilometers wide which gives scientists an estimate that the asteroid must have been around 12 kilometers in diameter.

And the first position is the Vredefort crater in South Africa. 

As per the crater size of 160 kilometers, it is estimated that the impacting asteroid must have been between 10 to 15 kilometers in diameter.

The size estimation of these asteroids were done by NASA by compiling crater data and using AI models to predict the size of the asteroid that could have created it.