With space exploration, we have seen that most planetary surfaces are dotted with craters. The Earth, like other objects in the solar system, has been bombarded at the same rate by celestial bodies of varying sizes. Every day, 100 to 300 tons of cosmic dust (micrometeoroids) fall to Earth. An asteroid with a diameter of 350 meters hits the Earth once every 16,000 years or so, and an asteroid with a diameter of 75 meters hits once every 1,000 years.
These collisions with celestial objects create impact craters on the surface of terrestrial planets like Mercury, Venus, or Mars. If we do not see impact craters very well on Earth, it is because they have been eroded over time, but they have not disappeared; we still find them today.
Five new sites are discovered every year. Richard Grieve of the Geological Survey of Canada has classified with his team the impact craters by age class. The number of impact craters is 169, and he estimates that there are 5,000 craters left to be discovered.
N.B.: Large craters often have a central uplift surrounded by the crater itself. The uplift forms by "rebound" of the ground following the impact, and its diameter is generally equal to 20% of the total diameter. The crater rims are very often collapsed, with landslides along circular faults.
The Giant Crater of Vredefort in South Africa is the largest impact crater on Earth, with a diameter of 300 km. Numerous gold mines have been detected on the crater site, which alone provides half of the world's gold production.
The Giant Crater of Sudbury in Canada hides one of the largest nickel deposits among the most important in the world.
The Popigai Crater in Russia is rich in diamonds.
By fracturing the rock, impacts favor the storage of the most diverse deposits, such as oil or gas, which accumulate in the faults caused by the gigantic shock. Over time, enormous reservoirs have formed in the fractures beneath the Earth's surface.
Although meteorite impacts have often destroyed life, they have also stored resources that are indispensable to human evolution today.
Dwarf Planets: The Forgotten Worlds of the Solar System 
Physical Composition of Trans-Neptunian Objects in the Kuiper Belt
Haumea and its Moons: A Singularity of the Solar System
The Enigma of the Oort Cloud: Indirect Evidence and Uncertainties
Sedna: Between the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud
Quaoar: The Dwarf Planet Defying the Roche Limit with its Rings
The 40 largest objects in the solar system
Pluto's Satellites: Strange Companions in the Dwarf Planet's Shadow
Ceres: Boundary Between Asteroid and Dwarf Planet
Pluto and its Moons: Charon, Nix, Hydra, Styx, and Kerberos
Eris: The Dwarf Planet at the Edge of the Solar System
Gonggong: An Eccentric Witness to Distant Perturbations 
Meteor Showers: Perseids, Leonids, Geminids... 
Interstellar Comets: When the Universe Sends its Messengers 
The Asteroid Bennu: The Building Blocks of Life 
Formation of Asteroids: From Cosmic Dust to Small Rocky Bodies 
The Asteroid Bennu: A Rotating Rubble Pile 
Yarkovsky Effect on Asteroids 
Arrokoth, the
red snowman 
The Kirkwood Gaps in the Main Asteroid Belt 
What is the asteroid belt? 
The Great Comet of 1577 Shattered the Crystal Spheres 
The Invisible Threat of Asteroids: From Pebbles to Flying Mountains 
Meteorites: Messengers from Space and Witnesses of the Solar System 
Comet Hartley 2: The Icy Heart Scrutinized by Deep Impact 
When Two Asteroids Collide: The Strange Case of P/2010 A2 
2005 YU55: The 400 m Asteroid that Grazed Earth 
Asteroid Apophis: The Perfect Candidate for a Global Impact? 
Vesta: The Colossus of the Asteroid Belt 
From Asteroids to Planets
2012 and Comet ISON: Between Promise of Brilliance and Disappointment 
Giants of the Asteroid Belt: Classification by Size 
Impact
craters on Earth 
Online Simulator: Orbits of Asteroids 
Online Simulator: Orbits of Near-Earth Asteroids 
Rosetta has a date with a comet 
Near-Earth Asteroids: An Underestimated Threat to Our Planet? 
Asteroid 2009 DD45: A Reminder of Planetary Vulnerability to Asteroids 
Strange Resemblance Between Comet Hartley 2 and Asteroid Itokawa 
Earth's Trojan Asteroids: Companions Sharing Our Orbit 
Turin Scale: A Classification of Impact Risks 
The Nice Model: Towards an Explanation of the Late Heavy Bombardment 
NEO Monitoring: The Case of Asteroid 2012 LZ1 
Comet Lemmon (C/2012 F6): The Southern Hemisphere's Green Visitor 
Asteroid 2012 DA14 passed on February 15, 2013 
Near-Earth Asteroid 2012 BX34: A Record Close Approach to Our Planet 
Didymos and Dimorphos: The First Asteroid Moon Moved by Humanity 
Chariklo and its rings: a surprising centaur asteroid 
Rosetta and Philae: A Feat 500 Million Kilometers from Earth 
The Passage of Comets: Eccentric Orbits at the Heart of the Solar System 
Vesta and its Curiosities: The Enigma of the Torn South Pole 
Meeting the Asteroids: The Main Belt 
Orbits of Near-Earth Asteroids: When Asteroids Brush Past Earth 
Wandering
comets 
Asteroid Pallas: A Giant of the Main Belt 
Asteroid Juno: an unknown giant of the solar system 
Ganymed (1036): Near-Earth and Mars-crosser 
Earth's quasi-satellite: 2016 HO3