Most astronomy buffs are familiar with the meteor crater in Arizona and may have heard of the Campo del Cielo crater in Argentina, but did you know our Lone Star state has meteor craters? There is a large one (eight miles in diameter) between Marathon and Fort Stockton out in Pecos County and a set of craters near Odessa as well. If you travel U.S. Highway 385 through the Pecos County region you will pass the western ridge of the Sierra Madera. In October a planetary scientist from the City Museum of New York and the American Museum of Natural History will lead a field trip to the Sierra Madera.

I keep learning more wonderful things about Texas even at 83 years of age; there is hope for you. The Sierra Madera site was used by the Apollo 17 astronauts Gene Cernan and Harrison “Jack” Schmid

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