The crater was spotted in an area of Antarctica called Wilkes Land, which lies in the region to the east and closest to Australia. The feature was spotted with NASA�s Grace satellites, which are designed to measure tiny differences in the Earth�s gravity across its surface. The crater is around 250 million years old and much larger than the crater caused by the object that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

The Earth�s geological history is split into distinct periods, such as the Permian, Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous. The event that wiped out the dinosaurs caused the end of the Cretaceous period and we can see that the geology of the Earth changed significantly at that time. Another much larger event occurred 250 million years ago, ending the Permian period, changing the Earth�s geology significantly and causing the beginning of the Triassic era. At this point around 70 per cent of the Earth�s organisms became extinct.

Some scientists believe the change between the Permian and Triassic periods happened abruptly, and could have been caused by the collision of an asteroid or comet with the Earth. The team from Ohio State University, who made the discovery, suggest that this crater acts as evidence for this theory.

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