When a meteorite with the mass of four Mount Everests hit Earth 3.2 billion years ago, it caused global chaos and provided an unexpected silver lining for life.

The space rock that slammed into Earth 66 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous Period caused a global calamity that doomed the dinosaurs and many other life forms. But that was far from the largest meteorite to strike our planet.

Billions of years ago, long before anything resembling life as we know it existed, meteorites frequently pummeled the planet. One such space rock crashed down about 3.26 billion years ago, and even today,