An Impact Structure With Legs - NASA Science
Scientists say the 13-kilometer-wide impact structure preserves shatter cones and shocked minerals that help reconstruct the meteorite strike.
- On September 20, 2026, the Operational Land Imager on the NASA-USGS Landsat captured detailed imagery of Spider Crater, an impact structure in Western Australia, updating earlier Space Shuttle photography of the ancient geological formation.
- For decades, scientists struggled to explain the crater's formation, with some proposing a volcanic origin until fieldwork identified shatter cones, confirming the site as a meteorite impact structure.
- Measuring about 13 kilometers by 11 kilometers, the impact structure features a spiderlike central portion about 4 kilometers across, with light-colored "legs" comprising sandstone ridges that endured erosion while surrounding rock wore away.
- Geologists believe the arachnoid pattern represents a central uplift formed by impact shock, while scientists use lab analyses of shocked quartz and zircon crystals to reconstruct the meteorite's impact angle.
- Located on the Kimberley Plateau, Spider dates to between about 900 million and 600 million years ago, making it a feature of the late Precambrian and one of Earth's oldest impact structures.
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An "unusual" crater, which is estimated to be 900-600 million years old, was photographed in Western Australia. "The Rainjen crater, the product of the impact of a meteorite followed by hundreds of millions of years of erosion, has numerous "legs.
A NASA satellite captured images of Spider Crater in Western Australia. The ancient impact crater could be up to 900 million years old.
An Impact Structure With Legs - NASA Science
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