Across the Solar System

Solar System

Since Galileo first trained his telescope on the heavens in 1609, astronomers have known that the moon is scarred by thousands of craters but there origin was a subject of argument for centuries. Geologists guessed that the craters were probably volcanic, but a few thought they might have been formed by impacts from the larger cousins of the meteors we see streaking across the night sky. It was not until the early 1960s that geologists and astronomers Eugene Shoemakers. examining the mile-wider Meteor (Barringer) Crater near Winslow, Arizona, proved conclusively that it had been caused by an impact by identifying geologic evidence left by the blast, which was caused 50-yard wide asteroid fragment that struck earth with a 20-megaton blast. Meteor Crater in Arizona is probably the most famous impact structure on Earth, and despite its age of 50,000 years, its desert location has kept its outlines relatively sharp. Nasa's lunar exploration program revealed that most of the moon's craters were likewise formed by asteroids or comet collisions, and the new insights into the cratering process enabled geologists to turn up dozens of impact craters structures on our home planet(earth). We know of more than 170 such impact craters pocking the surface of the globe.