Meteor Crater (Barringer Crater)

Fifty thousand years ago, a nickel-iron meteorite roughly 160 feet across hit the Arizona desert at somewhere between 29,000 and 45,000 miles per hour, vaporizing itself almost entirely on contact and leaving a hole nearly 3,900 feet wide and 560 feet deep. The Lunar and Planetary Institute and the American Museum of Natural History call it the best-preserved meteorite impact crater on Earth — a designation earned by dry climate and geologic youth. NASA astronauts trained here before the Apollo missions. The Barringer family has owned it ever since Daniel M. Barringer staked his mining claim in the early 20th century.