• Klear@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    Everybody knows asteroids always fall into craters, so it was just a matter of putting the centre next to the crater so it wasn’t hit.

  • comador @lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    Fun fact: The Park operators get so few visitors who actually pay to see it that they genuinely get excited when someone does pay for the tour. The park is in the middle of a barren desert.

    • FarFarAway@startrek.website
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      3 days ago

      Awww. I’ve made their day…twice!

      At this point it’s a family joke. I forced my parents to stop there when i was young, i dragged my S.O. to go there on a road trip, and I will take my child see it when the time comes.

      It’s a huge nothing burger crater, but how often does one see a giant hole on the earth made by space!

      • Classy@sh.itjust.works
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        4 days ago

        Definitely. Deserts can have incredible biodiversity. A lot of species of cactus, sedges, euphorbia, composite flowers, wrens, songbirds, the list goes on.

        Barren deserts probably are so destitute and lacking in humidity that practically nothing can grow there.

      • Crikeste@lemm.ee
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        4 days ago

        The word fertile has abundance as a qualifier. I don’t know if deserts could exactly be abundant, but there is an incredible amount of biodiversity in deserts.

    • BigDaddySlim@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      My parents and I stopped there on a little trip from NM to Monterey, California. It was summer and I remember there being maybe 10 other visitors there. It’s a super cool place but yeah it’s in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. Even Eustace, Muriel and their pink dog would say it’s the middle of nowhere.

    • NaoPb@eviltoast.org
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      4 days ago

      I thought this was going to be a reference to RollerCoaster Tycoon for some reason.

      Still a nice comment though and I’ll keep that in mind.

    • Crikeste@lemm.ee
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      4 days ago

      That’s actually sad. Makes me want to go just so they can have their happy time.

      • Severalkittens@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        I used to drive between Denver and Phoenix a bunch and decided to stop in one time. They charge $29 just to see it, and put a fence around the entire crater so you can’t look at the hole unless you pay them.

        • MindTraveller@lemmy.ca
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          4 days ago

          Well to be fair, they increased the value of the land by using a giant magnet to attract the asteroid. We wouldn’t have asteroid craters if it weren’t for brave entrepreneurs like this.

      • comador @lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        They put up fences several years ago so you could no longer see it from Meteor Crater Road. It’s not a bad tour honestly and it’s just off interstate 40 near Winslow, AZ. I’d recommend it, ONCE lol.

  • morgunkorn@discuss.tchncs.de
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    4 days ago

    Almost as lucky as the presence of those huge dams, imagine the floodings if they weren’t there, all that water from the lakes would destroy everything downstream

  • Marthirial@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    This is so stupid. Everybody knows the visitor center is there after conducting a multi million multi year study of the most likely place for an asteroid impact. And they got it right!

  • meseek #2982@lemmy.ca
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    4 days ago

    On the topic, how lucky are wineries that a vineyard decided to grow in their backyards?! Like what are the odds!

    • Madlaine@feddit.de
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      3 days ago

      That’s survivorship bias.

      There was a time when humans built wineries everywhere and hoped to attract vineyards.

      Nowadays, you only see those that attracted one, as all other wineries gave up centuries ago

      • meseek #2982@lemmy.ca
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        3 days ago

        Right sort of like the belief dolphins always help humans lost at sea but that’s because you only hear the stories from the survivors. No, wait.

  • Margot Robbie@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    This is obviously a deepfake if I ever seen one: if this is a really a visitor centre, then why isn’t it located in the centre of the crater?

  • notsure@fedia.io
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    4 days ago

    satire isn’t dead, it’s just gasping in the corner pointing at sarcasm…

  • psycho_driver@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    Another reason to push for early detection systems. Those poor people–imagine walking outside after a nice stroll through a visitor center to find a huge impact crater only tens of meters away!