WHERE: Meteor Crater, Ariz.

WHY GO THERE: If you've ever wondered how a meteor might impact your neighborhood, visit Meteor Crater near Winslow in the northern Arizona desert.

HOW BIG? About 4,000 feet in diameter, some 570 feet deep, and rises 150 feet above the surrounding landscape.

WHEN DID IT LAND? About 50,000 years ago — a blink in geological time — when the Colorado Plateau was cooler and damper and dotted with woodlands roamed by woolly mammoths, giant ground sloths, and camels and probably not humans.

THE EVENT: Scientists think a nickel-iron meteorite about 150 feet wide struck Earth at around 28,600 mph (about half its bulk vaporized before it hit the ground). The explosion, about 150 times the yield of the atomic bombs used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, tossed out 175 million tons of rock over 100 square miles. The blast would have killed all life immediately within a 2-mile radius and produced a fireball hot enough to cause severe flash burns at a range of up to seven miles.

MAN WITH A PLAN: While early geologists insisted the crater was a dead volcano, Daniel Barringer, a mining engineer from Philadelphia, believed otherwise. He bought the crater in 1903, convinced it was made by a huge meteorite. He also believed that if he could find that meteorite, buried beneath the crater floor, he'd be rich. Barringer was right about the crater, wrong about the meteorite. He drilled a 1,400-foot-deep shaft, in the crater floor, found nothing, and died in 1929 when he ran out of money.

TWO MEN IN A PLANE: In 1964 two pilots in a Cessna 150 flew into the crater for a closer look but were unable to climb out due to downdrafts. They survived a crash landing and a small portion of the wreckage remains on the crater floor.

WHAT ELSE IS THERE? A small visitor center and museum are at the rim built by the Barringer family (who still owns the Crater). The center includes an 80-seat theater that shows a 10-minute feature, "Collisions and Impacts." An Apollo test capsule sits outside — NASA astronauts trained here in the 1960s — and there's a display of the largest fragment of the original meteorite to survive, a 1,400-pound chunk.

There is also a gift shop where you can buy a baggie of "Crater Dust" ($10) and other spacey items.

IF YOU GO: Meteor Crater is open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily (Memorial Day to Labor Day) 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. (rest of year) daily. Tours are 9:15 a.m. to 2:15 p.m.

Meteor Crater Road, Winslow, Ariz. 35 miles east of Flagstaff (exit 233) on Interstate 40. A 6-mile-long paved road also built by the Barringer family links the crater with I-40. $15, adults; $6, ages 6-16; under 6 are free. www.meteorcrater.com, 928-289-2362.