Chicxulub impactor Chicxulub impactor The Chicxulub impactor ( ), also known as the K/Pg impactor and (more speculatively) as the Chicxulub asteroid, was an asteroid or other celestial body some in diameter which struck the Earth at the end of the Cretaceous period, approximately 66 million years ago, creating the Chicxulub crater. It impacted a few miles from the present-day town of Chicxulub in Mexico, after which the impactor and its crater are named. Because the estimated date of the object's impact and the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary (K–Pg boundary) coincide, there is a scientific consensus that its impact was the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event
Liverpool crater event to form the rim. Flat-lying and non-deformed sandstone that must have been deposited after the impact event is exposed within the crater's center. Because the crater is quite well preserved, it can be argued that it was buried by younger sedimentary rock soon after the impact event; this younger rock has now been mostly eroded away except in the crater center. The crater-filling sandstone was originally thought to be of Cretaceous age, leading to the Cretaceous age listed for the crater in older literature sources. But more recent studies suggest that the infilling rock is more likely to be