Uh Oh
Dear Friend,
Family Travel Is Education.
Today, I watched as scientific data confirmed that the planet Earth had been split into pieces and vaporized.
You see, my family and I spent this afternoon at Meteor Crater in Arizona, the best preserved crater of its kind on Earth. The Apollo astronauts trained here for the lunar landings, and studies continue here to understand what happens when objects from space impact the Earth and other heavenly bodies.
The Meteor Crater Visitor’s Center gave my family a real education. One of the displays there was actually a interactive computer screen that allowed you to simulate the effect of a meteor impact. You could enter variables such as angle of impact, density, size and composition of the meteor, and the velocity of impact. It was amazing to see how much difference resulted from changing variables as simple as the angle of impact.
After each input, the program would show a lifelike video of what would happen to either the Earth, Venus, or the Moon as a result of the impact.
My kids loved this thing. They all got a fun education in celestial physics.
Of course they jacked up all the variables to max right away, and the results on the machine were sobering.
Yes, we watched as our home, the Earth, was vaporized in front of our eyes. Nothing was left after a large asteroid impact. Other impacts only resulted in minor damage, such as the end of all life on Earth. Thank goodness for that.
I also discovered during this visit that our family home sits at ground zero of one of the ten largest known meteor craters on Earth. Yet you would never know it from being there. Amazing.
There was a display showing the size of Meteor Crater compared to typical craters on the Moon. There was no comparison. You wouldn’t even notice this huge crater on the Moon, it is so small. This really brought the scale of celestial objects into perspective.
Anyway, the presentation that my family experienced at Meteor Crater was better than I expected. It was a real education. I recommend it highly if you happen to travel in the Flagstaff, Arizona, area.
Tomorrow we travel to the north. More on that later.
Talk to you soon!
Hugh
