Around 50, 000 years ago, a rock fragment shattered apart from the asteroid belt and hurtled in the direction of earth. The rock, consists of nickel and iron, was around 50 meters across and also weighed 300, 000 tons. It was actually travelling at 12 .8 kilometers per second. Upon getting into the earth’s it became a tremendous fireball that streaked across the North American sky. When it crashed into the plains of Arizona, it exploded with a force equivalent to 10 megatons or roughly 150 times the force of the atomic bomb that ruined Hiroshima.
Scientists denote the crater as Barringer Crater in respect of Daniel Barringer, who was first to imply that it was actually created by a meteorite impact. The crater is privately owned by the Barringer family through their Barringer Crater Company, which proclaims it to be "best preserved meteorite crater on Earth”.
