Scientists have found an unusual crater, similar to those in the outer reaches of the solar system, off the East Coast.

The six-mile wide crater, which is buried beneath the North Sea, some 80 miles off Scarborough, is thought to have been produced by the impact of an asteroid about 60 million years ago.

But because its original shape has not been eroded by the elements, the so-called Silverpit crater is unlike anything else on earth.

Researchers in this week's issue of Nature magazine say it sits in chalk beneath 120 feet of seawater and more than 900 feet of sediment.

The collision would not have been powerful enough to spread debris across the planet, but would have created a huge tsunami (tidal wave) that would have swamped what is now north-eastern England and Scotland. It happened after the catastrophic impact near Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula that scientists suspect contributed to the extinction of the dinosaurs. Silverpit is said to look much like craters found on two icy moons of the planet Jupiter, called Europa and Callisto.

Updated: 11:40 Thursday, August 01, 2002