It Came From the Depths of Space

It Came From the Depths of Space By Elton Camp It was created at the time of the Solar System’s birth And traveled millions of miles before it reached Earth When it reached the atmosphere, it had no way to slow So crashing into our planet was the only way it could go About 300,000 pounds was the visitor’s impressive mass Through the air at 26,000 miles per hour it did pass It wasn’t composed of material that was flimsy or fickle But was made mostly out of the elements iron and nickel This took place fifty thousand years into the Earth’s past And was shown by a fireball and a most tremendous blast If onto one of the oceans the visitor had happened to fall, There would have been scant evidence it had made a call But what is now Arizona is the place it proceeded to strike Cooler and wetter, it wasn’t what the present desert is like Forest trees and vegetation it leveled for many miles around Mammoths, mastodons and sloths it knocked to the ground It was by the force of the impact, the meteorite was melted With tiny fragments of iron the surroundings were pelted Millions of tons of limestone and sandstone it blasted away And there we see an enormous crater even to this very day The huge depression is ¾ of a mile wide and 750 feet deep With walls of remaining stone so impressive and so steep Why should something like that still interest us here today? Because it could happen another time in just that same way