The crater hidden under the ice
The account
A huge crater under Greenland's ice was said to be the scar of an impact that changed the climate at the end of the Ice Age.
What investigators found
The crater is real, but 2022 dating showed it is about 58 million years old, long before humans.
The story
In November 2018, an international team led by Danish scientists announced the discovery of an impact crater about 31 km across hidden beneath nearly a kilometer of ice, under the Hiawatha Glacier in northwestern Greenland. It was identified using airborne radar data, including from NASA flights, and from sediments carried out by meltwater.
At first, some researchers suggested the impact might be recent and linked to an abrupt climate shift about 12,000 years ago, an idea that excited supporters of ancient catastrophes. In 2022, however, dating of rock grains pointed to an age of about 58 million years, ruling out that hypothesis.