What We Can Learn From A Massive Meteor Crater

50,000 years ago, a dense chunk of nickel and iron, over 100 feet across, entered the Earth’s atmosphere. It sped towards the surface at 45,000 miles per hour, and slammed into the lush woodlands of North America. The impact left a giant hole—590 feet deep and three-quarters of a mile wide—in the landscape of what is now northern Arizona.

Today, we know the site as Meteor Crater. It has fascinated generations of people, but we are still only just beginning to understand asteroids, the phenomenon that excavated this remarkable location. To really get the scope of this natural wonder, Popular Science sent extreme science correspondent Jake Roper to take us on a video tour.