Slowpoke: Atmosphere put brakes on meteorite that formed famed crater

The extraterrestrial object that gouged out northeastern Arizona’s Meteor Crater about 50,000 years ago struck Earth at a speed much slower than most scientists had previously proposed.

When a meteorite slams into Earth, the crater that’s created usually contains both Earth and space rocks that were melted by the kinetic energy of the collision (SN: 6/15/02, p.