Dante imagined a catastrophic planetary impact in striking geological detail 500 years before science understood how asteroids work - and it took a researcher reading the Inferno to notice

The structure of Hell, as Dante Alighieri laid it out in the early 14th century, is a cone-shaped cavity driven into the earth, narrowing through nine concentric rings toward a frozen pit at the centre of the planet. It was created, in Dante’s telling, when Satan fell from heaven and struck the Southern Hemisphere with […] The structure of Hell, as Dante Alighieri laid it out in the early 14th century, is a cone-shaped cavity driven into the earth, narrowing through nine concentric rings toward a frozen pit at the centre of the planet. It was created, in Dante’s tellin... [7049 chars]