Meteor Crater - The World's Best Preserved Asteroid Impact Crater
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ส.ค. 2024
- Meteor Crater is one of the only craters on Earth which resembles the classic impact craters we see on the moon. It's a recent impact crater in a region of the planet which hasn't seen a lot of erosion which contributes to its preservation. I was fortunate enough to get a chance to hike into this crater along with researchers who study the asteroid impact problem, giving me a rarely seen view of this unique structure.
Thanks to Meteor Crater for enabling this
meteorcrater.com/
Find out more about the B612 Foundation and their mission to protect the world from the threat of Asteroid impacts.
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My brother went there. He said it was amazing how close it hit to the visitor center!!! (LOL)
I've been there. It seemed the meteor had hit in a very convenient location for tourists, so close to a major highway.
That is a Randall Carlson joke if im not mistaken..
🤣🤣🤣
Heard a few dinosaurs got killed.
😄
That's funny
was in an airliner flying to somewhere in Texas, when the pilot pointed out we were flying almost directly over the crater… so he banked the plane way over to the right, and then way over to the left so folks could look down into the crater from about 6 miles up. Very impressive.
What a nice thing to do
Kickass pilot right there.
I'm guessing this is back when you could smoke on planes, and seatbelts in cars were optional? :D
@@secularmonk5176 no- it was around 1994. And then, in 97 I was flying an air Alaska flight from Portland to San Diego and that pilot did the same thing when we flew directly over Yosemite valley…Tipped the plane into about a 20 degree bank left and right so you could look right down on top of Half Dome. Although, in 1999 I Was flying back from Italy, where I had bought a bunch of very hard to find sculpture tools and put them in my check in. Among them was 7 mold knives. Big 12” long knives with 6” of razor sharp blade. As I was passing thru the x-ray for my connecting flight at Heathrow the operator stopped my bag and the security agent asked me, “Pardon me, sir, but do you have any metal articles in your bag?” To which I replied, “why, yes, there are seven large knives in that bag, about yay long” holding my hands up about a foot apart. The guy looked squintingly at the screen and I saw his mouth moving, as if counting under his breath. Then he said, “Right you are…” and handed me my bag and they let me board the plane.
Almost exactly 2 years later I got stuck in China on 9/11, and it took nearly a month to get a flight home. Finally got a flight and they searched every bag and they pulled out my fingernail clippers and told me I could not carry those on the plane. I looked at the security guard and asked him, “ you mean to tell me that your flight crew is such a bunch of wimps that they might let someone take over a plane with a fingernail clipper?” In that moment I remembered ironically how the British security guy had let me on a plane with seven huge knives, solely because I had honestly told him exactly how many I had.
@@christopherpardell4418 Thanks for sharing!
I'm not looking forward to the day that this becomes the second-best-preserved asteroid impact crater.
Come on, where’s your sense of adventure? 😉
@@ELCADAROSA It died of old age a few years ago. :)
It'll be a great story for the grandkids
@@ELCADAROSA I know imagine having to tell your grandkids about going to school barefoot in the snow up hill both ways while dodging asteroids
ah come on, why wouldnt you want to see a radio telescope being built in it
Another interesting fact about this crater is that the impactor landed at the intersection of two minor fault lines. This helped form the crater into a square shape with rounded corners. You can see this square shape at 1'41" and 4'07".
Thank you! I'd always wondered about that.
Me too when he showed the aerial view of it I saw it look like a square with rounded corners I thought it would be a perfect circle!
Cool info, I had wondered about that shape
As well as block cleavage of underlying sandstone strata.
1:41 4:07
That meteor almost hit interstate 40!
ROTFL
Never mind that, what about the visitor center WHICH ONLY BARELY SURVIVED.
I wonder if anyone had a dashcam by then.. Or instant bird photography..
Saw the Crater from the air flying out of Winslow.
That desert is green.!
But fortunately it hit the crater instead, huge luck!
Scott: "you can get guided tours of the rim but you can't get to go into it"
Scott in literally the next clip: * flexing being inside meteor crater *
What is the point of being guided around the rim but not let all the way in???
@@voidremoved so tourist dont trample and litter the place
@@voidremoved It is the best perserved impact crater in the world. If it was open for tourists it would cease to be that. The fact that it is left to science is a great thing!
@@voidremoved I ask my wife this exact question pretty much every night.
@@Skinflaps_Meatslapper wow, it must be bewildering being so close to something so beautiful and never being inside. trust me, it's not as good as you'd expect, but it's nice to say "i've been in there!".
That mineshaft is an artificial hole inside a natural hole. It's like the opposite of building a tower on a mountaintop.
the scientific term is "a-hole"
A tower on a mountaintop is an artificial hole inside a natural hole...in the atmosphere.
@@JarrodFrates A boat is a hole in the water you fill with money.
It's just lucky that mine shaft was there for the meteor to land in otherwise all the fish at the bottom of the crater would have died when it landed in it. And how about the sheer luck of that visitor center?? To be that close when they moved the crater away from the highway and it didn't fall in. Talk about dropping a business out of the sky.
Our company once built a 300ft deep brick well. The client was really annoyed, went up to the bricklaying foreman, took the section drawing from him, turned it the right way up and asked him when the chimney would be finished. It's as true as I'm riding this bike, missus!
I visited here last summer. I arrived about 5 AM and everything was still locked up, so I started walking around the area to see if I could find a decent place to watch the sunrise. As I walked off to the left of the parking lot, I noticed that there wasn’t any fence preventing me from just hiking up to the rim. Once I got up there, I followed the rim trail clockwise all the way around. The crater is a little less than a mile in diameter, so the rim trail is about 2.5 miles. I passed by some pretty cool old mining buildings on the western slope of the rim. Toward the end of my walk, I noticed that the last tiny section of the trail is paved, which I later found out is the only section of the rim trail they take visitors out on. As I made my way to the visitor center, I was accosted by an employee who immediately escorted me to the front entrance to buy a visitors pass (which I was going to do anyway). She gave me a stern talking to and told me I had been trespassing on private property and blah blah blah - I tuned her out after the first few seconds. In my defense, I never crossed any fence lines nor were there any signs posted that said to stay out of the area I explored - although I later found out that there are actually signs, but they are only visible if you go off to the right side of the parking lot, but I had gone left. Despite paying for my ticket, buying a meal at the small cafeteria, and spending a decent amount of money at their gift shop, the staff was incredibly rude to me for the rest of my visit there.
That echoes my visit there as well. Very rude staff. Shame, really. I guess you have to be VIP.
Sounds like there's a bunch of assholes there
The wife and I went there this Summer. We didn’t even plan on it, just saw the sign while driving and went on a whim. It is very much worth it. Thanks Scott.
I did the same about four weeks ago. Saw the admission price and headed back to I-40!
Same, but more like 20 years ago. My parents and sister and me were driving to visit family in California and when I saw the sign I asked if we could stop by. I'd always been a huge science buff as a kid, so I was excited we were going to be so close. My dad also thought it'd be cool so we dropped by for a few hours. :) Glad I got to see it in person.
Saw it in 2007...was on way back home from California.
Worth seeing....Grand Canyon is not very far away either.
😁👍
Petrified Forest is also in that area. Worth visiting too.
Same happened to my ex-gf and me when we were on a road-trip back in 2017. Bought a small fragment of the meteor too.
Definitely worth a visit.
7:48 Haha, I can' t believe it. When the Microsoft Flightsimulator was released last year, we flew into the crater with a Cessna and circled in it. Never heard of this accident until right now. Would love to see it in reality one day. Greets from Bavaria/Germany.
Just goes to show how realistic computer models are...
I was there this spring. The tour guide made the joke that if humanity went extinct and then an alien civilization came here and studied the ruins they would find a crater and at the bottom of the crater deep underneath they would find the Cessna aircraft that would appear like that is what crashed and made the impact
Thank you for that excellent video. I visited Meteor Crater back in 1968. Two things that I think they ought to have there is (1) a full-scale model of the asteroid itself at the visitor center so that people can get a sense of the size of the asteroid that created the crater, and (2) a "ski-lift" that will take people down into the crater itself. When I was there in 1968 you could walk (at least part way) around the rim but there was no access to the crater floor. It appears that now there is a trail that (strong, healthy, fit) people can hike down, but I'd bet a lot of visitors would pay a few bucks to be transported down to and back up from the crater floor by something like a ski lift.
Great idea! I was thinking an elevator shaft under the visitor center, but the ski lift would give you an excellent view as you descend and return, and prevent any damage to the crater itself.
I was under the impression that they limit the number of people who can go down there in order to preserve the crater.
At ~50m it would still be a very large model.
I visited the crater in the late 60s as a teenager and again just a couple of years ago. It is an amazing reminder that Earth is not alone in the universe. It is also commendable that the family who owns the crater chose not to over-develop the area so that it remains relatively intact. It's well worth a visit.
Meteor Crater. Ahhh a awesome place to visit tbh. Frequented when I was younger. My favorite memory was when a tour guide showed us a large Iron Meteorite chunk (5:26) on display from the impact telling us about it and then told us that the Meteorite was not even bolted to the display stand. He joked, "If you can lift this and take it out to your car, you're free to take it home."
I was a tour guide there 20 years ago.
That was pert of our standard routine.
@@-oiiio-3993 Nice! Do you have an idea how much it weighs ?
@@arantes6 1 cubic meter of Iron is 7.87 tonne, how big is it you guess?
This is a lie. The Barringer Family bought the rights to the crater and never found a meteorite. Do some research. This is why it is called Barringer Crater. The Family lost a fortune. And heat does not come from the Sun; and no such thing as river rock. Learn how to recognize the truth.
@@TheBlueScarecrow 5:37
I've never seen footage inside the crater before. Thank you.
He did a video on this 5 years ago, except in full 360 / VR.
Dunno why he's acting like this is new.
@@KCzz15 He spoke of his previous visit. Were you listening, to make a charge like that?
And you're editing so whatever I spoke to is subject to revisionist history.
@@Bill_Woo
He said he visited previously, he didn't say he filmed the entire thing in 360 / VR and put it on his channel.
My comment stands.
@@KCzz15 It stands in edited state.
And no, you weren't listening, until after I commented.
But you're very good at refusing surrender.
@@Bill_Woo
What are you on about? Because I fixed a typo in my original comment 30 seconds after I'd posted it, it's invalid?
Love that they have Semi & RV parking. I took a ride down there in an 18 wheeler once and it was one of the coolest lunch breaks of my driving career!
I did the same, unannounced to my codriver. amazing
I'm waiting for an employee with a sense of humor to put a movie prop copy of Thor's Hammer at the center.
😀
With the cartoon shape or the original curved shape?
@@johndododoe1411 Doesn't matter, as long as you have a Stan Lee cardboard cut-out visible from the visitors center binoculars, getting ready to lift Thor's Hammer...
To see the Crater was always a childhood fantasy of mine. I've been there twice. Viewing the Crater still invokes a sense of awe.
As an AZ native, I've always had a special love of Meteor Crater. Been there a few times. And I've always thought it was a missed opportunity that they don't have a "meteor burger" in the restaurant.
mmmmmm meteor burger! what a genius✌️😎👌
When I worked at MC 20 years ago I suggested a taco bowl type salad (in fried tortilla) as a 'Crater Salad' and a version with chunks of meat as the 'Meatier Crater '.
No one would listen.
You serve coffee at 98°C in a cup that softens dramatically when heated to 95°C and you get sued for massive damages, and here you're suggesting serving a burger at twice the boiling point of iron?
@@Sableagle As long as it hits the plate at sufficient speed most of it will vaporize.
@@-oiiio-3993 love the ideas!!! shame some people just don't listen
Glad you made it to Arizona. Hope you enjoyed your trip. I hiked down to bottom back in the 70's. They charged extra for the hike. It was worth it.
I flew over from oz in 2019 and went to visit. Even used my fuel voucher are the service station. Thank you Scott for this and helping me to relive my visit there
I visited there just in July. Didn’t get to go into the bowl! Awesome place. Not to mention it’s conveniently close to the Grand Canyon.
"Coneniently close"?? This is so American - it looks to be about 150km away! It's like saying that Birmingham is conveniently close to London, if you're visiting... We're hoping to visit the States in 2023 and the Grand Canyon is (of course) on our list of places to see. When I read your post, I thought "great - we can pop down the road and see Meteor Crater too!"
@@paulhaynes8045 It's all relative.
Distances between cities in the American Southwest are vast.
When I distributed Sparkletts water in Northern AZ my route was larger than some European countries.
If you're staying in Flagstaff, just make it part of a day trip. 🥳
Popped onto the access road (was actually on a road trip to Winslow) & found out about the entrance fee. It's, um, not $0.25 anymore. 😳
Turned right around and kept on a chuggin'.
@@paulhaynes8045 150km is nothing.
@@svenmorgenstern9506 No it's not, but it's still well worth it.
Humans: “I will use advanced physics and a military industrial complex to make the most powerful weapon ever.”
Space: “Haha big rock go brrrr”
Nature: “Come talk to me when you can match the Chicxulub Impacter (12-18 million Megatons)!”
Sorry but it’s “brrrrrrt”
There are actually theoretical weapons that consist of steering asteroids towards Earth. Apart from the propulsion issues, these would have unacceptable accuracy problems.
@@MrX21B yeah no its thump
@@marc-andreservant201 This is where AI comes in
Amazing to think that there has been 49 millennia of dust blowing into the crater and it hasn't filled up yet.
There've been 49 millennia of dust blowing out, too!
This is why the Earth’s surface is not covered with craters, the same way the Moon’s is. They’re in similar orbits, they would have been hit (and are still being hit) with similar densities of random objects. Erosion/deposition on the Earth tends to wipe out the traces in (geologically) short order.
As an Arizonan, I can confirm that the views there are excellent, and also that we've had unreasonable amounts of rain recently.
Also love the crater. The concentric raised rings in the land around the crater for miles are like waves in water when you drop a rock. The land essentially behaved like a fluid when the energy was released.
Large areas of solids act like fluids when violently disturbed. It's pretty cool.
@@questioneverything4633 yes!! A recent crater, well preserved.
Not an uncommon thing. At very high pressures and velocities, tensile strength of materials is very low in comparison to inertia.
Yes, it's really cool driving through the rings the road cuts through as you approach the crater.
I went there back in 1994 and I found it very interesting. Unfortunately, they wouldn't let us out on the rim of the crater due to high winds so we stayed inside the visitor center. I would guess that since then the visitor center would have gone through a remodel. I think it would be fun to take my own family there now that my oldest is now how old I was when I had visited the site.
That's so awesome that you got to go down there. They don't even let normal people walk along the rim let alone go all the way down! That's so fortunate.
The first time I saw it I was about 10 years old back in 1964. I was more interested in a space suit that was on display in the visitor center and other stuff about space flight. Watching a little star move across the sky one evening in Indiana with my dad telling me that it was John Glenn in a space capsule opened my imagination. I figured I would probably be able to go to the moon by the time I was in my 30's (my parents age at the time). Guess that didn't happen.
The 3rd time I saw it I was interested in the crater itself. It was just hard to imagine a huge chunk of iron could make such a crater. If the whole thing was still in it's original size before entering the atmosphere I imagine it would have been easier to understand. When I looked at the iron, I remember thinking it should look like a ball of rust, but it was relatively free of rust.
T'wasn't John Glenn. His entire mission was daytime in '61. Perhaps one of the later Mercury missions or if in '65 or '66, it was a Gemini mission.
@@TheBudhenson It was John Glenn, he made 3 orbits and it passed overhead (Marion Indiana) in the afternoon or early evening. Yuri was the first to orbit in 1961, from Soviet Union and made a single orbit. I saw the crater in AZ in 1964.
Been there twice. Always wanted to go down there. Thanks for the virtual tour!! I still have a coffee mug from the gift shop to frequently remind me of the place. I have an Arecibo mug too.. Another bucket list spot I visited. :)
My wife and I visited there in 2005: a great experience and memory.
It's a very cool place, highly recommend going out of your way to visit. When we went we were the only ones there.
Ditto! Made a planned detour on a road trip from Texas to Vegas to stop by Meteor Crater. Can't recommend it enough!
Like your recommendation here, Dave. Still don't like your review of the PICkit 3. ;)
cool only 12 hours flight for me...
😒Don’t be scammed😒
It’s boring & a waste of time.🤢🤮
- It takes long to get there.
- It’s extremely hot most of the year.
- They won’t allow you to get down into it.
🤦♂️
- If they smart enough they would have open during the night & offer tours during full-moon days down into the creator, & star gazing during the rest of the month.
The day we stopped by, the guided walking tour along the rim was very informative and well paced, led by an experienced docent who made sure everyone in our small group had a good visit, with all our questions answered. The history museum and tour are a great investment for parents and kids who love space exploration, natural history and need a break from driving to stretch your legs and open your mind.
Stopped there in 1973. Impressive crater. I was upset the local gas station was charging $.52 a gallon. Mostly paid. $.29/gallon on the way to California.
imo it's both awesome and terrifying how much bigger the crater is compared to the meteor.
There is a crater in Bikini atoll that's one third larger but about half as deep as Meteor Crater, but it is a nuclear explosion crater created by the detonation of a 15-megaton hydrogen bomb at ground level. The blast sent out supersonic shock waves that nearly capsized and sunk a ship there to observe that explosion 23 miles away from ground zero. It's a good bet the impact that created Meteor Crater created a similar thermal pulse and blast effects, but no radioactive fallout unlike the Castle Bravo test that drenched the area in radiation that was enough to inflict a lethal dose in minutes.
@@taraswertelecki3786 the difference between a nuclear explosion and a meteor impact is the ratio of thermal energy and blast energy in a nuclear explosion the thermal to blast energy ration is 5/3 but on a meteor impact blast energy is significantly higher
@@prashantsinghsisodia6709 That matters little if you are near ground zero for either one.
As a LONG time amateur astronomer I was simply stunned at the sight of it. When you first see the inside it almost takes your breath away.
Thank you for these great observations. I wanted to go down in there soooo bad when I was there. I definitely support the search for possible Earth impact asteroids. As a member of The Planetary Society, established by Carl Sagan and Louis Friedman we fund astronomers who search for said asteroids.
I was a tour guide there 20 years ago and it never ceased to impress me.
Visited it a few weeks ago. What an awe inspiring place. Fabulous.
I was lucky enough to visit this crater a few years ago. Such an impressive place, I would have loved the opportunity to climb down into the centre!
I think it's so cool and I hope I get to visit s8me day. I think it's just so crazy that of all places a meteor could land it landed in a crater like that. Imagine if it had landed on a highway or an airport.
Yeah, it's a little bit of a let down that you can't go down, but it's cool none the less.
Wow, it's a good thing the meteor missed the gift shop!
O ffs, evribody is making the joke I was about to make, juust grate.
Yes, by 50,000 years!
The dinosaurs might have a bone to pick with it
I was there when I was a kid. At that time you only had to pay to enter the visitor center (maybe $15 for a family?) and if you wanted to walk to the bottom you were free to do so at your own risk. I think you could pay more for a guided tour. But most of the stuff at the bottom was mining equipment.
The crater lies at about 5,600 ft above sea level and has a depth of around 560 ft. Someone who lives near sea level and has not acclimated to the elevation could find it challenging to hike from the bottom to the rim, even if they're in good physical shape. I wonder how many "drag-outs" they had to provide to out-of-shape visitors who hiked to the bottom, but then found they didn't have the stamina to hike up to the rim again. Maybe that's why they don't allow hikers into the crater anymore.
@@Milosz_Ostrow Yeah I think insurance was a bit more ok with just posting 'at your own risk' back then as well. We didn't have the lawsuits etc then like we do now.
I managed to get to the bottom of the crater in 1977. There was a group of several people that were going down to the base and I asked if I could join them and they said OK. It was a neat experience to be down at the bottom where the astronauts trained. This was on a trip across the country with my parents and sister. They let me go, but they were not thrilled with how long I was down there.
I live in flagstaff which is a short drive from the meteor. Its breathtaking when you get to the edge and realize just how massive this crater is.
Visited this as a child. Will forever remember how amazing it was.
3:45 really gives you a perspective on how insanely huge this crater is.
Now try to picture it next to the Chicxulub impact crater that is about 150 km in diameter.
Pan from 10:13 too. Needs some cows or sheep, or lifesize models to provide scale.
Gene Shoemaker had a great sense of humor. I recall a video he did where he talked about an ancient crater that he identified in Germany. A church in a city located in the crater was constructed out of stone that had been quarried from the crater. Gene demonstrated that the stone of the church contained the signature stigmata of shocked quartz proving its impact origin. Gene referred to the church as (paraphrasing) "the largest geologic specimen on Earth proving an impact event."
There's a railway station near my hometown which is built from sandstone. If you're a geologist and you want to see the type (reference) specimen of the rock, textbooks advise going to the railway station, not to any outcrop. I always found that very amusing, though, it probably isn't to others.
You can tell they really went wild with their imagination and creativity in naming that meteor crater Meteor Crater.
used to be called Barringer Meteor Crater.....
6:30 "...bullets can embed themselves inside the target..." Rifle bullets fired at steel plates, bricks, etc. make a 'splat mark' that is almost identical to this crater. However the width and depth of the mark is similar to the size of the bullet, since they have much less energy. The bullet itself shatters/vaporizes, much like the meteor.
There's an interesting bit of physics involved in bullets hitting steel: melting by velocity!
When you heat a steel plate, the atoms vibrate in place faster and faster, being pushed back into place by the forces between them that maintain the matrix and thus the solidity of the steel. The hotter it gets, the faster they move, the farther they go and the more they push each other apart, so the steel expands, but it stays solid. Get it hot enough, though, and the amount of extra force required to nudge the atoms past each other gets small enough to allow you to forge steel bars into sword blades. A little hotter than that, and the atoms are moving fast enough to go past each other and break free of the matrix, a process we call melting.
When a bullet hits a steel plate, if it's going fast enough, it pushes on the atoms that are exactly in its way and gets them moving fast enough relative to the rest of the plate for them to behave as if liquid. Below that critical velocity, you get the lead of the bullet acting like a liquid and splashing beautifully over the solid steel surface, like a water balloon dropped on a steel cargo lift, turning back to solid itself as soon as it's no longer impacting. Above that velocity, it's like a bucket of water thrown through one of those decorative sheet-of-water waterfalls you get in hotels, and you get a beautifully polished cylindrical hole through the plate.
Of course, there's a nasty possibility if the bullet's short and the plate's thick: the bullet starts off "melting" the plate but slows down too much to continue doing so before it can get all the way through, leaving a crater like a meteor impact transient crater that splashes the remains of the bullet right back at the shooter. Not a problem shooting at thin mild steel or hardened steel from 600 m, but a real issue shooting thick slabs of mild steel at short range.
Safety goggles highly recommended.
Saw it IRL and freaking loved it. Also visited the observatory in Flagstaff and the grand canyon, such interesting to see and explore there!
The Great Sand Dunes National Park is also worth a visit.
Been there once with my grandpa when I was a kid, now I live like 3 hours away, studying aerospace engineering at ASU, would have been cool to go down with this group, would have been just as cool to stumble into the great Manley and grab a beer...
What is amazing if you go there is how small that astronaut mockup looks from the rim of the crater. Without a telescope or binoculars, the astronaut looks like a speck from the visitor center. This is (although for the Moon or Mars a pretty small crater) by human terms a large crater.
How good is this mini-documentry, bravo Scott, bravo 👏 👏👏
Thoroughly fascinating - every last word! Had me engrossed throughout. Great visual accompaniment, too. Excellent work, cheers Scott.
✌️😎👌
This place has always fascinated me, I downloaded and printed a picture of the this on the first windows pc I had back in 1998! It took ages to download and just as long to print it, kids today don't know how good they have got it.
Nice presentation.
I was a tour guide at MC 20 years ago.
For those who are asking why the crater appears 'squarish' when viewed from above, it is due to block cleavage of the underlying sandstone strata.
Nice
They should turn that bowl into a new Aericebo
Yes! This!!!
Perhaps an even larger crater on the Moon could be an extremely large telescope?
It's on fault lines, so that'd be dangerous.
Amazing it barely missed hitting the visitors center!
You know, meteors usually hits the middle of the crater, so the visitor center was safe.
Yes but the gift shop sustained heavy damage.
When I was younger, my family lived in Arizona for nearly four years, and we never went to this crater or the grand Canyon.
Thank you for showing so much of this natural attraction to a person who never got to see it in person!
Great video. When I scheduled a trip to Arizona in 2005 I purposely timed my flight back so that if the crater happened to be visible from the plane and I happened to be on the correct side of the plane to be able to see it that the sun would be at a good angle to get a picture of it. To my surprise I did see the crater and managed to get a great picture of it.
Perfect timing. I was just now reading O. Richard Norton's book Rocks From Space chapter on Meteor Crater.
I have a nice chunk of Canyon Diablo meteorite on hand to make this even more fun!
Great book! My little chunk of iron space debris landed in Toluca, Mexico in 1776. It's the oldest object anyone can ever touch, older even than the earth. And I just picked up a small Chelyabinsk. I treasure these objects.
Went there in the '90s with my father when he was still around and hiked out on the rim with just the two of us and an otherwise bored tour guide. Great experience. Turns out we had just missed Shoemaker who was a regular visitor. As we'd met him a bit before in another part of the country (great guy and much missed), it struck us as funny how small the world can be sometimes.
Too bad you didn't take one of my tours.
I had the pleasure of guiding one with Carolyn Shoemaker (recently R.I.P.) and some of her students in 2000 or early '01. Carolyn was a gem. Gene had passed on a few years prior.
Bringing space down to earth for everyday people
I went there in 2018 from the UK, We were in Vegas for four days & decided to drive up before going to San Diego, Wow very worthwhile Guided tour was great too
That was a blast of a video, very interesting. Thanks for sharing Scott.
I've been there.
You have to listen to the Eagles when you're there as it is so close to Winslow Arizona.
I still have the iron fragments that I bought at the crater's gift shop.
Fascinating information. I’ll never remember all the exact details, but enough to get me a free beer at the bar. . .
Scott! I was just here! I took my wife on a road trip and this was one of the must-see's.
"Thunderbolt iron". When Terry Pratchett was to be knighted, he mined some iron ore to make his own sword, which he furnaced and forged himself, and he acquired some "thunderbolt iron" to throw into the mix. GNU Sir Ptrerry.
I went there a couple years ago! I'm jealous you got to actually go inside. The wind at the rim is very strong, so I'm surprised how calm it is down inside the crater.
That region of the country is typically very windy. It is the lower, drier and warmer section of the Rocky Mountains. There is frequently a 50°F temperature difference and at times even as much as 80°F difference between within 100 miles.
I used to drive a truck across I-40; and the winds get bad enough the highway is closed for long stretches for a few days at a time. The road is closed more for wind than snow.
Interesting tidbit it's actually colder at the bottom
@@hewhohasnoidentity4377 oh yeah and there's no buffers at all, just flat land for miles and miles.
@@hewhohasnoidentity4377 The Rockies? Arizona is not part of the Rocky Mountains, and the crater is over a hundred miles from the New Mexico border. Way, way off.
Great timing, my wife and I were there about two weeks ago. From the rim you can't even make out that astronaut without magnification.
Always enjoy an unexpected field trip with professor Manley!
It is amazing that this meteor, from such a great distance, came in at a tremendous speed and JUST MISSED THE GIFT SHOP AND VISITOR'S CENTER. Fantastic.!
the meteor was not moving, it was the Earth that hit the meteor.
Amazing place, thanks for the tour Scott
In the mid-1960s I walked around the rim with a big empty camera bag with a 40-pound pull magnet hanging from a nylon kite string. Wandered out with roughly 50-pounds of asteroid/meteorite fragments in my camera bag. Incidentally, mostly they're not in the crater, but part way down the outer slope about a quarter way around in the eastward direction (blowback ejecta).
Very cool. As a graduates student in geology at ASU and a TA for Dr. Paul Knauth's sedimentology class (1981 something?) we had a field trip to the Flagstaff area (Verde Valley, San Francisco Peaks, Sunset Crater and Meteor Crater . . . ). Our 'tour guide' at Meteor Crater was Dr. Shoemaker; setup by Paul. Unfortunately, I did not have the knowledge base at the time and only now look back realizing, WOW, but cherishing it now.
Cheers, Mark
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I really love this story! You are a great narrator for scientific stuff :)
My wife and I went there in 2010 as part of our honeymoon trip. Jealous that you got to go down into it.
Honeymoon, eh? Soooo...did you? Like, right on the edge? lol.
If he was lucky he had 2 rimshots that day/night
Been there a few times, having lived in AZ and also passed by there on road trips through AZ. The crater is absolutely worth stopping by for an hour or two! I think, for not being able to actually go into the crater, it's so neat to see, and the visitor center is really well done.
Cameras and video don't do it justice. I had studied everything about it prior to my visit last year, but the true scale of the thing is mind-boggling. Glad Scott made the descent into the crater to bring back footage so we don't have to......................................
Love the astronomy, geology as much as Space. More please. Nice job.
Well worth the trip. Need to see it with one's own eye to appreciate the size. Also, the area around the crater is very flat.
Highly recommended.
Scott Manley getting all geologic again. Great job on a worthy subject and location!
MAAAATE. I live in AZ and I’ve been here since I was a little kid. I’ve visited the crater so many times and I’ve ALWAYS wanted to go down to the bottom!
I’m insanely jealous.
In 100,000 years someone is going to be very confused why there’s a plane buried underneath a meteor crater.
That plane was fast as hell 🤣
They must have been so smart back in the days.
"And _this,_ dear spawn, is an example of the sort of self-destructive behaviour that eventually led to the extinction of the primates and created the niche in the land-based ecology that allowed _us_ to emerge from the seas and become the dominant species on this planet. Well, this, war, global warming and that anti-vax nonsense, but seriously, this."
Accidentally stopped by it in later 1970s and was so excited, as I love any geological or in this case, extra-planetary sites. But they wouldn't let me go out due to the weather, so I just had to get back on the road home, but it was impressive, nonetheless. There was a great view from the visitor's center windows, which is a whole different view than being in it or above it. Pretty monstrous and it's way, way, way down to the center. BTW, the visitor's center windows look exactly the same as when I was there, 50+ yrs ago. Comforting, somehow. Nice to see the iron meteor chunks they had on display, too. Just thinking the "luck" that the meteor had to hit the 1/3 of the planet that is land. Most hit the ocean b/c there's so much of it.
Scott says the crater is off Route 66 but if you want to visit you actually use Interstate 40. Route 66 is fragmented and more of a heritage highway at this point.
The comments section here is brilliant. i really really don't want to see it decline.
Keep it up Scott and commenters.
ever since I visited it as a kid, it's always boggled my mind how square-ish the crater is.
Good observation. It is squarish.
It’s square because of erosion.
@@XJapa1n09 If it started as a round hole it would have eroded to a round hole. All four sides would not have eroded to straight. Maybe one of them might have but all 4?I don't think so.
@@rickyredd3131 Not necessary, erosion depends on the composition of the materials around. Than again, it could have started of being not perfectly circular.
Edit. There’s also factors like prevailing wind direction and how water flows in the area.
I read something about it hitting between 2 fault lines
Should also hit sunset crater while in that area - I can still hear it crunching under my feet.
Walnut canyon is pretty cool too.
There's a volcano east of Winslow that can be visited, too, with lava bubbles to see and an open lava tube that faces north and therefore serves as a natural freezer, slowly filling itself with ice as well as the trail up to the crater rim. I still remember the little guide leaflet: "This is one of many lightning-blasted trees that can be seen along the trail, as the lava is rich in iron and attracts lightning." The first bolt of that day's lightning storm was behind me on my right, close enough for me to smell it, while I was standing on the rim of the crater, and another happened about 30 paces in front of me while I was on my way back down. It's quite possible that the can of Dr Pepper I spotted on the way back down saved my life, because I stopped running to pick that up and drink it just a few seconds before that bolt.
Went there some five years ago around this time of the year while on a road trip around the US west coast. Amazing site. Highly recommended.
I went as a kid and again 20 years later. I don’t like the expression “breathtaking” but that is the feeling I got standing on the rim.
It's a very interesting place. I walked around the rim years ago when that was still permitted, but I've never been inside. One of Barringer's wooden drill rigs is still found on the rim opposite the visitors center. Preserved by the dry weather I guess.
That was a walking beam 'on loan' from the Santa Fe Railroad which was _very_ interested in Barringer's iron / nickel mining enterprise.
@@-oiiio-3993 There actually are remnants of a drilling rig. DMB was my great grandfather and I've seen the parts many times.
@@GaragebandandBeyond I've been to the rig on the southern rim of the crater as well.
I was a tour guide at MC two decades ago.
There's also the 'bag house' on the western side, left over from a venture which used the high grade silica sand for optical glass production.
The Barringers also once held significant interest in Peerless Motors which was one of the prestigious 'three p's' along with Pierce Arrow and Packard.
@@-oiiio-3993 If you were working there two years ago we have met! FYI This is Lewin Barringer.
@@GaragebandandBeyond
It was two _decades_ ago and I believe we have.
I was the only guide for a time when Eduardo had left in a huff.
I proposed to my future wife here: "It took a big rock to make an impact like this, so I think the impact you've made on my life deserves a big rock...*slips ring on her finger*" After that, I just tell people that I proposed to her in a dirt pit...lol.
Sniff... just beuuuuuteeful.
Glad that you could go down into the crater! Thanks!
You are one lucky bloke to go down, Scott! Been there 6 or 7 times, and every time I longed to go to the center and look! Dream unfulfilled.
Scientists thought this was a volcano for the longest time. Local indigenous peoples had a tradition about a great light that fell from the sky. Listen to the locals.
There was an article in the Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage about that last year. They're not actual oral traditions, but rather appropriations changed for use in drumming up financial support for the iron mining venture. Listen to the locals, not the modern reinvention of what they had to say no matter how much you wish it were otherwise.
As amazing as it is, I refuse to pay $20 per person to a private organization to see what should absolutely be a national monument.
For me it was a mystical, almost spiritual experience. Begrudgingly worth $20.00.
You're more than welcome to purchase the crater and donate it the National Parks Service.
I believe the family offered it before it became so famous, and the US gov’t said “no”.
I went there with my mother years ago. Videos don't do it justice. The scale of the crater can only really be perceived in person. Very cool you got to go down into the crater. Normal visitors are allowed down there.
Pictured was a steam engine that ran a winch, and the rivetted boiler that provided steam to that engine. Must have been a lot of work supplying that boiler with water and fuel continuously during operation!
Meteor Crater: big hole conveniently close to a bunch of other big holes!
There is a very, “low-time “ 100 horsepower Continental airplane engine inside of that shaft. Dig it out and get it recertified it may be worth about $20000. Those poor guys! It must have been terrifying to not get enough lift to pull out of there.
I was there in 1999 and saw the wreckage. I thought that it was a recent crash.
You forgot to mention that this gigantic hole was formed in less than six seconds.
That was the best documentary on Barringer Crater ever. Lucky trip for you! Thank you. In 1967-73, in the apartments where my family lived in Rosemont, Pa, was one of the Barringer kids (probably a great-grandchild of Daniel Barringer). I never met him but he kept a monkey in a cage on his balcony and was said to be a kook. I really wanted to meet him after that! I see that Daniel died in 1929 in Philadelphia so that explains the connection.
This was an excellent presentation, delivering much of the same information as I did while a tour guide at MC 20 years ago.
The Barringer family still hold the four mining patents taken out by Daniel Barringer.
I was there in 2018. Loved it