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NEO Earth Expeditions

More On This Project

• Expedition Updates

65 million years ago, a comet or asteroid slammed into Earth, near the Yucatan Peninsula, ending the Cretaceous Period of the dinosaurs and changing the course of life on our planet. The crater, more than 200 kilometers (120 miles) in diameter, is located in the northwestern Yucatan peninsula in Mexico and has been named Chicxulub, "the devil's tail," in the local Mayan dialect.

The Planetary Society sponsors geologic expeditions to Belize and Mexico to study this impact crater in the hopes of gaining a better understanding of the impact event, its global ramifications, and near-Earth objects and Earth impacts generally. The last Belize expedition was January, 2001.

The Planetary Society also sponsored a trip to Italy to study the layer between the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods.