Mizarai Meteorite

The fact that objects occasionally fall from the sky has been noticed by people for a very long time, but did you know that hundreds of millions of years ago one of them fell right next to Druskininkai in the village of Mizarai? It’s true however, that only the location of its crater has survived, although it’s invisible on the Earth’s surface.

The crater was first noticed between 1969 and 1971 when a geophysical photograph of Druskininkai was taken. It turned out that a cosmic catastrophe occurred here many millions of years ago when a meteorite some five kilometres in diameter and 250 metres long hit the Earth’s surface at high speed.

A huge pit remained at the site of the explosion, and the Mizarai crater itself is filled with sedimentary rocks, including sandstone, siltstone and clay. Today, mineral water springs flow from the depths of the crater.