Meteor Crater is a crater in the State of the Arizona in the west of the the United States of America.

It is also called Cratère Barringer , in remembering the mining engineer Daniel Moreau Barringer, who bought the site in 1903.
the crater measures 1.200 meters in diameter and its depth is of 180 meters.
It would have been formed approximately 50.000 years ago, following the impact of a Météorite approximately 45 meters in diameter and of a mass of 300.000 tons, composed of Fer and Nickel. The energy generated by the shock is estimated at 150 bombs of the Hiroshima type.

In 1999, Elisabetta Pierazzo (Université of Arizona) and other scientists put forth the assumption that the speed of the meteorite at the time of the impact would have been from approximately 20 km/s (either: 72.000 km/h).
In 2005, Jay Melosh (University of Arizona) and Gareth Collins (Imperial College) propose a slower speed of about 12 km/s.

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