If you want to be technical about it, everything on Earth came from outer space at one time or another. Ask Carl Sagan (or Neil DeGrasse Tyson). But meteorites did so in a much more immediate fashion, which is why we think an upcoming exhibit at the Verde Valley Archaeology Center is so cool.
From March 1 through August 31, the center in Camp Verde will exhibit Return of the Camp Verde Meteorite, a nickel-and-iron space rock discovered along Clear Creek in 1915. Subsequent studies confirmed that the meteorite was a piece of the one that created Barringer Meteorite Crater (commonly known as Meteor Crater), a half-mile-wide hole in the ground east of Flagstaff. Because of its distance of 100 miles from that crater, it's likely this meteorite separated from the original one during its descent, the center said in a news release.
The meteorite is being loaned to the center, 385 S. Main Street in Camp Verde, from the Arizona State University-sponsored Center for Meteorite Studies, where hundreds of other fragments of the Meteor Crater meteorite are housed.
In addition to exhibiting the 2-foot-long meteorite, the center will host a free talk on meteorites on March 3 at 7 p.m. The speaker will be Dr. Lawrence Garvie, research professor at the ASU School of Earth and Space Exploration.
For more information, call 928-567-0066 or visit www.verdevalleyarchaeology.org.
(Photo: The Camp Verde meteorite | Courtesy of Verde Valley Archaeology Center)