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24 October 2022
Fifty thousand years ago, a massive iron-nickel meteorite, about 150 feet wide and weighing several hundred thousand tons, collided with Earth in an area outside Flagstaff, Arizona. The force of the collision was 150 times more powerful than an atomic bomb. Often called a Meteor Crater, the giant bowl-shaped cavity created by the impact of this meteor measures 550 feet deep and nearly a mile wide.
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Weighting 300,000 tons, the meteorite traveled 26,000 miles per hour (12 kilometers per second), and it exploded with the force of 2 12,000 tons of TNT or 150 times the force of Hiroshima’s atomic bomb. As a result of the impact, most of the meteorite melted and spread over the landscape in a fine mist of molten metal. Consequently, there was a blanket of shattered, pulverized, partially melted rock mixed with meteoritic iron covering the ground for a mile in every direction as millions of tons of sandstone and limestone were blasted out of the crater.
During the last ice age, the Arizona landscape was much cooler and wetter than it is today, and at the time, a forest surrounded it where giant ground sloths, mammoths, and mastodons grazed. All life unfortunate enough to be nearby would have been thrown across the plain by the force of the impact. The landscape recovered over time, and the crater formed a lake, and sediments built up to a depth of 550 feet. As the ice age ended, the climate changed and dried out. Today’s desert has helped to preserve the crater by limiting the erosion that might otherwise have obscured or erased the traces of the ancient impact.
Since many craters have been erased by erosive geological processes, very few are visible on Earth. Despite its relatively young age and the dry climate in Arizona, Meteor Crater has remained relatively unchanged since its formation. Despite its lack of erosion, the crater’s shape greatly facilitated its groundbreaking recognition as an impact crater.
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Approximately 270,000 people visit Meteor Crater every year. Meteor Crater is an essential site for education and research. Astronauts continue to train at this site, which was used to train Apollo astronauts. There are interactive exhibits and displays about asteroids, meteorites, space, the Solar System, and comets, as well as artifacts like a boilerplate Apollo command module (BP-29), a meteorite that weighs 1,406 pounds (638 kilograms), and meteorite specimens that can be touched from Meteor Crater. In addition, the Visitor Center is home to a Discovery Center & Space Museum, a movie theater, a gift shop, and observation areas with views inside the crater rim. Weather permitting, guided tours of the rim are offered daily.
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