You can see out-of-this-world landscapes in Arizona
This column was originally published July 11, 2008: Today’s question:
I recently saw a documentary on the Apollo moon program. They showed a segment where they re-created an actual landscape from the Sea of Tranquility somewhere in Arizona for the astronauts to practice with. Any idea where this might be? If so, is it still there and can it be seen by the public?
You’re new here, aren’t you? Arizona’s role in the Apollo program is somewhat of a point of pride around here.
Yes, indeed, astronauts for a few of the Apollo missions trained for their moon walks and geological duties at Meteor Crater, about 35 miles east of Flagstaff, at some old lava fields outside of Flagstaff and at the Grand Canyon.
Certainly, those places are still there for you to see.
Anyway, doesn’t that give you a sort of quiet sense of pride to know that parts of your state pretty much look like the face of moon?
And it’s not just the moon. Several years ago, scientists from the University of Arizona did a lot of research on dust devils down around Eloy in preparation for various missions to Mars.
It turns out that Martian dust devils are a lot like Arizona dust devils, although usually several times stronger. Such a place we live in.
It occurs to me that some of you may be new around here and may not know what a dust devil is.
Dust devils shape up where the ground surface gets really hot, especially when two different types of surfaces intersect. Such as pavement and dirt.
Anyway, what happens is that really hot air, which is less dense and lighter than the air just above it, rises from the surface and meets cooler air, which falls back into the vortex, and the whole mess starts spinning horizontally in that kind-of tornado way. This phenomenon involves something called the conservation of angular momentum. What does that mean?
Umm, well ... we’ll talk about that some other day.