I think y’all are starting to get the theme of this weekend, everything space related! Meteor Crater is a 50,000 year old hole in the ground created from an asteroid impact. As we approached, you can just make out the 3/4 mile wide rim just off to the left on the horizon.
The view from the rim looking back towards Flagstaff and the San Francisco Mountains.
Boom!
Wildlife on the rim.
How deep is this hole? It’s about 600 feet deep from the rim and on the right is a blow up of the center with an astronaut statue for reference……. Why a astronaut? Space related I guess.
This impact is quite striking!
After the crater, we headed to Flagstaff and the Lowell Observatory. Since it doesn’t open until noon we had time for a Mars Hill Hike.
The view of Flagstaff from Mars Hill.
This was the first telescope at the famous Lowell Observatory. It is 130 years old and quite interesting. This is the instrument used to discover the canals on Mars.
Mike, Cam, and I were geeking out over not only the telescope but the wood dome structure.
The Lowell Observatory is actually a collection of many telescopes. This one is perhaps the most famous as it was used to discover Pluto.
There was lots of posted information about space and especially Pluto in and around this telescope and at no place did I ever see a post that Pluto has been demoted from planethood.
Although it didn’t specifically say, the Lowell Observatory appears to have been transformed from a “science campus” to mostly a tourist attraction, cool non the less. Why did I put “science campus” in quotes? Well, I’ll leave that for you to research….
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