On Earth
Meteor Crater
Imagine you’re in that new convertible, with the top down, because in August the outside tempter is still hovering around 83 degrees Fahrenheit and there's a nice breeze. On this particular late evening you have elected to simply enjoy the wondrous sights of the night sky. You vow, to no one in particular, that you will not leave until you see at least one falling star.
You're listening to the local oldies station on the radio and simply staring into space; suddenly, seemingly out of no where, you see a tiny yellow dot, which seems to be getting closer, instant by instant. In fact, the dot doubles in size it seems about every second, until it darkens the sky to the point that no stars can be seen at all. That’s when you realize that this dot must be the size of New York City
This enormous object may cause earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, and wipe out natural daylight for several years to come ... Oh ... and its sure to kill you as well. The fact is that yellow dot is an asteroid in route to planet earth. But then, shucks, this is nothing new; such events have occurred numerous times in Earth’s history and will likely happen again and again.
A similar event occurred about 49,000 years ago, when a huge meteorite though to be about 150 feet wide, weighing in at approximately 300,000 tons and whipping through space at nearly 40,000 miles per hour. Yes it hit earth, because if for no other reason, no one was there with a magic ray-gun to stop it. We know this now because the result of the impact can be seen today less than 50 miles east of Flagstaff , Arizona in the south western portion of the United States
The impact force is thought to have been equal to 20,000,000 (20 M) tons of TNT; the resulting crater is ¾’s (1.2km) of a mile wide and 575 feet (175m) deep.
In 1902 it was discovered by a mining engineer named Daniel Barringer who bought the property so as to exploit its potential mineral reserves which he was sure would have been left behind by the asteroid of years past; in fact his family still owns the place.
This is only one of many asteroid or comet impacts upon earth, but various climate conditions such as rain an wind typically erode the all the evidence away; for proof, just look at the surface of the moon, our closest extraterrestrial neighbor. It has so many clearly visible impact sites; you’d think it had a really bad complexion problem.
A few other notable sites here on earth include Clearwater Lakes, Canada which is believed to be the result of a double impact about 290 Million years ago and then there’s Grosses Bluff in Australia which is thought to have occurred 142 Million years ago.
Lets not leave out the one that is thought to have wiped-out the dinosaurs with a single wallop; Chicxulub (pronounced cheek-shə-loob) Crater located underneath the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. That impact crater is 110 miles (180 km) wide, and is generally thought to have occurred about 65 million years ago.
The end may have been quick for the dinosaurs by the resulting world wide firestorm, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and mega-tsunamis but most likely they simple starved to death during the following years due to the negative impact upon the environment in general.
There exists today a small nearby village called Chicxulub which means in the Mayan language: “tail of the devil”, perhaps a fitting name indeed, but the good news is without that particular impact we humans would have never survived the dinosaur, but guess what, odds are good that in time our own extinction event is coming. We only need to be patient.
Sources …
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