Meteor Crater Topography
The Earth and Mars are two planets which evolved very differently. By studying locations on Earth whose environment might be similar with that of Mars, scientists are able to theorize about 'the red planet' as well. Meteor Crater is one such study site in the Colorado Plateau, 73 km east of Flagstaff, Arizona. After the meteorite hit the surface of the Arizona desert thousands of years ago, some of the rocks were pushed up along the edge to form a rim around the crater. High resolution (2 m) digital elevation of the site, collected by aerial overflights of the region, is shown here overlain with a natural color IKONOS image.
Viewing a full rotation of the Meteor Crater, this animation shows the detailed topography of the site.
This image shows the detailed 2-meter topography of the Meteor Crater.
Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio
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Visualizer
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Cindy Starr
(Global Science and Technology, Inc.)
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Cindy Starr
(Global Science and Technology, Inc.)
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Scientist
- James Garvin (NASA/HQ)
Datasets used
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[IKONOS]
ID: 39 -
Topography [Airplane: Airborne Topographic Mapper]
ID: 232
Note: While we identify the data sets used on this page, we do not store any further details, nor the data sets themselves on our site.
Release date
This page was originally published on Wednesday, December 31, 2025.
This page was last updated on Thursday, December 3, 2015 at 10:37 AM EST.