Scientists have found evidence of a massive asteroid, 12 to 19 miles (20 to 30km) wide, that struck Earth more than 3 billion years ago.

The asteroid would have hit with an impact larger than anything humans have experienced.

The discovery was made in tiny glass beads called spherules, found in north-western Australia, which were formed from vaporised material from the asteroid impact.

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The asteroid is the second oldest known to have hit the Earth and one of the largest. 'It would have caused huge tsunamis and would have made cliffs crumble, scientists say. Pictured are the tiny glass beads called spherules studied by researchers in Australia

THE RISK OF ASTEROID IMPACTS The B612 Foundation recently discovered that Earth is up to 10 times more likely to be hit by an asteroid than previously thought. While the majority of the impacts occur either high up in the atmosphere, or in unpopulated areas the danger was still ever-present. The findings were based on information released from the Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organisation. This operates a network of sensors that monitor Earth around the clock listening for the infrasound signatures of nuclear detonations. But what these sensors found were not nuclear explosions, but rather asteroid impacts on a huge scale. Between 2000 and 2013 the network detected 26 explosions on Earth ranging all caused by asteroid impacts. Advertisement

'The impact would have triggered earthquakes orders of magnitude greater than terrestrial earthquakes,' said aid Dr Andrew Glikson from The Australian National University (ANU).

'It would have caused huge tsunamis and would have made cliffs crumble.'

'Material from the impact would have spread worldwide. These spherules were found in sea floor sediments that date from 3.46 billion years ago.'

The asteroid is the second oldest known to have hit the Earth and one of the largest.

Dr Glikson said the asteroid would have been 12 to 19 miles (20 to 30km) across and would have created a crater hundreds of miles wide.

About 3.8 to 3.9 billion years ago the moon was struck by numerous asteroids, which formed the craters, called mare, that are still visible from Earth.

'Exactly where this asteroid struck the Earth remains a mystery,' Dr Glikson said.

'Any craters from this time on Earth's surface have been obliterated by volcanic activity and tectonic movements.'

Scientists have found evidence of a massive asteroid, 12 to 19 miles (20 to 30km) wide, that struck Earth more than 3 billion years ago. The discovery was made in tiny glass beads called spherules which were formed from vaporised material from the asteroid impact. Pictured are the sediments are Marble Bar

The asteroid would have been 12 to 19 miles across and would have created a crater hundreds of miles wide

Dr Glikson and Dr Arthur Hickman from Geological Survey of Western Australia found the glass beads in a drill core from Marble Bar, in north-western Australia, in some of the oldest known sediments on Earth.

The sediment layer, which was originally on the ocean floor, was preserved between two volcanic layers, which enabled very precise dating of its origin.

Dr Glikson has been searching for evidence of ancient impacts for more than 20 years and immediately suspected the glass beads originated from an asteroid strike.

ASTEROID IMPACT 3.3 BILLION YEARS AGO MAY HAVE VAPOURISED OCEANS Scientists found evidence for huge asteroid impacts up to 3.2bn years ago. These may have superheated the atmosphere Earth may have been turned into a 'giant boiling hot spring' about 3.26 billion years ago, according to new research. Asteroid impacts early in our planet's early history likely superheated the atmosphere, evaporating huge amounts of water on the surface. But the latest study suggests this occurred 500 million years later in Earth's life than thought. The research was carried out by Dr Donald Lowe from Stanford University in California and Dr Gary Byerly from Louisiana State University. Previously, it had been thought that 'frequent large impacts' on Earth ended about 3.8 billion years ago. However, recent discoveries have suggested the Earth continued to be bombarded by large impacts from asteroids - around 12 and 62 miles (20 and 100km) across - until 3.3 billion years ago. In their paper, published in the journal Geology last year, Dr Lowe and Dr Byerly said at least two such impacts between 3.29 and 3.23 billion years ago were large enough to super-heat the atmosphere. This would have boiled the surface layer of the ocean on the young Earth, evaporating up to 330ft (100m) of seawater from the surface. The atmospheric temperature at the time could have reached more than 500°C (930°F) for several weeks after the impact, and remained at 100°C (210°F) for a further year. Earth's ocean would have then become a 'single, giant boiling hot spring' that may have affected the early development of Earth's crust, and its stability. Advertisement

Subsequent testing found the levels of elements such as platinum, nickel and chromium matched those in asteroids.

There may have been many more similar impacts, for which the evidence has not been found, said Dr Glikson.

'This is just the tip of the iceberg. We've only found evidence for 17 impacts older than 2.5 billion years, but there could have been hundreds'

'Asteroid strikes this big result in major tectonic shifts and extensive magma flows. They could have significantly affected the way the Earth evolved.'

The research is published in the journal Precambrian Research.