April 30, 2023
Saturday's best photos: from 'Floating Earth' in Liverpool to Gathering of Nations
Friday's best photos: from from the Premier League to the NFL Draft
Thursday's best photos: from a new Camilla waxwork to a Base jumper in Spain
Wednesday's best photos: from a small Quran to a new Barbie doll with Down's syndrome
Tuesday's best photos: From 'Wall of Death' in Pakistan to Anzac Day in New Zealand
Monday's best photos: From bungee jumping in Beirut to falconry in Kyrgyzstan
- 4.5 billion years ago: Mars-sized object smashes into the newly-formed Earth, creating debris that coalesces to form the Moon
- 66 million years ago: 10km-wide asteroid crashes into the Gulf of Mexico, wiping out over 70 per cent of living species – including the dinosaurs.
- 50,000 years ago: 50m-wide iron meteor crashes in Arizona with the violence of 10 megatonne hydrogen bomb, creating the famous 1.2km-wide Barringer Crater
- 1490: Meteor storm over Shansi Province, north-east China when large stones “fell like rain”, reportedly leading to thousands of deaths.
- 1908: 100-metre meteor from the Taurid Complex explodes near the Tunguska river in Siberia with the force of 1,000 Hiroshima-type bombs, devastating 2,000 square kilometres of forest.
- 1998: Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 breaks apart and crashes into Jupiter in series of impacts that would have annihilated life on Earth.
-2013: 10,000-tonne meteor burns up over the southern Urals region of Russia, releasing a pressure blast and flash that left over 1600 people injured.