Meteor Crater

 It was in the last Ice Age more than 50,000 years ago when a huge iron-nickel meteorite more than 150 feet wide impacted the earth in present day Arizona.  Traveling at more than 29,000 miles an hour the meteorite struck the earth with the fore of 10 megatons of TNT and was mostly disintegrated on impact.  Trish and I stopped to visit the crater as we drove through Arizona.

The meteor crater from the rim.

Originally more than a mile wide and 759 feet deep, the crater has eroded between fifty and a hundred feet at the rim and filled up more than 200 feet at the bottom.  It is now only about 559 feet deep.

Because of its similarity to the moon’s surface, the crater was used as a training ground by astronauts during the Apollo moos shot program.  It continues to play a role in NASA training projects.