Revision History

Arizona's Meteor Crater — the best-preserved impact site on Earth — continues to yield scientific breakthroughs more than 50,000 years after a 300,000-ton nickel-iron meteorite carved a nearly mile-wide hole in the Colorado Plateau. From resolving decades-old puzzles about impact speed to training the next generation of lunar explorers for NASA's Artemis program, the crater remains an indispensable natural laboratory whose relevance extends far beyond its desert rim.