CRATER INVESTIGATION

INTRODUCTION In this activity you are going to: Learn about the about the solar system Understand why meteorites (space rocks) hit the Earth Investigate what affects the size of a crater Branding

MOON CRATERS

CAN YOU NAME THE PLANETS? Branding

EVERYTHING GOES AROUND THE SUN Most meteorites (space rocks) start as asteroids in the Asteroid Belt We call this going around the Sun orbiting. The Asteroid Belt it a region of space between Mars and Jupiter that is full of rocks, from a few metres across to the size of a moon, that were never able to form into a planet.

SOMETIMES THEY GET KNOCKED And sometimes they orbit the Sun and the Earth gets in the way! If an asteroid gets knocked out of its stable orbit, it will can fall into an elliptical, or squashed orbit around the Sun. And sometimes, the asteroid’s orbit will overlap with the Earth’s orbit. Branding

A CLOSE SHAVE! The Chelyabinsk meteorite airbursted (exploded in the atmosphere) due to the intense heat and pressure forces during re-entry

IF THEY DO HIT THE EARTH… This is Meteor Crater in the Arizona desert. 50 000 years ago an iron meteorite impacted the earth leaving this hole in the ground. The original meteorite had a diameter of about 30m but weighed as much as a Navy Aircraft Carrier! City inserted for scale!

YOUR TASK To investigate how the height that you drop a ball from affects the size of a crater. Students will make their own impact surfaces from flour with a dusting of cocoa powder on the top

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION http://simulator.down2earth.eu/planet.html?lang=en-GB This impact simulator will allow your class to further investigate the factors that affect impact crater size in a nice visual way!