Meteoroids and

the Craters They

Make
About this Activity
This activity investigates the
formation of craters. You'll
see how the size, angle, and
speed of a meteorite's impact
affects the properties of
craters. In addition, your
family will become familiar
with the terms meteor,
meteoroid, and meteorite.


Image of unnamed crater on
the far side of the moon
courtesy of NASA.



Things to Talk
About
Discuss these terms
before beginning the
activity.

A meteoroid is a
particle or rock
traveling through
space. The size of a
meteoroid can range
from microscopic to
many meters across.

Image of Meteorite photo by
Ron Hipschman, courtesy of
California Academy of
Science
A meteor is a streak
of light seen in the
night sky caused by
a meteoroid entering
the Earth's
atmosphere and
vaporizing in a flash
of light. The light is
produced by the
heat of friction


What to Do
To begin the activity,
fill one of the basins
with flour about 1
1/4 to 1 1/2 inches
(3-4 centimeters)
deep. Sprinkle a little
cocoa on the surface.
This will make the
changes caused by
the pebbles more
visible. Gather the
various pebbles; they
will be the
"meteoroids."



E X P E R I M E N T 1
Testing the Size of the Meteoroid

Pick out one of the smallest pebbles and
have a family member volunteer to drop
(not throw) the pebble from about eye
level into the basin.

Describe what you observe, and try to
predict the appearance of a crater formed
by a larger pebble dropped from the same
height.

Then have your volunteer drop a medium
size pebble from about the same height.
What is different about the crater?

Have the volunteer drop the largest
pebble from the same height.
between the
meteoroid and the
atmosphere. The
average size
meteoroid, which
causes the meteors
that we see at night,
is probably no larger
than a grain of sand.
Speeds can be as
great as 50,000
miles per hour
(80,000 kilometers-
per-hour) or more.

A meteorite is a
meteoroid that has
struck the Earth. On
impact, large
meteoroids leave
craters and may
bury themselves
deep underground.
Meteorites of any
size can be quite
valuable.




Record the results on your data sheets.


Meteor Crater near Winslow, Arizona
was formed by an impact that
happened 50,000 years ago. An
explosive force greater than 20
million tons of TNT left a crater 700
feet deep (210 meters) and over
4,000 feet (1,200 meters) across.


E X P E R I M E N T 2
Testing the Speed of the Meteoroid

Pick out three or four pebbles of roughly
the same (medium) size. Smooth over the
flour and sprinkle on a little more cocoa.
For a test comparison, have the smallest
family member drop one of the pebbles
from eye level.

Try to predict the appearance of a crater
formed by a pebble of the same size
dropped at a higher level.

Have the next person drop pebbles in at
successively higher levels.

Have the tallest family member drop the
pebble from as high of a distance as
he/she can. Make sure that all trajectories
are vertical for consistency in the test.

Record the results on your data sheets.

E X P E R I M E N T 3
Testing the Angle of Impact

Smooth the flour and sprinkle on more
cocoa. Have someone throw a medium-
sized pebble with moderate force
vertically into the basin. Then try to
predict the appearance of a crater if the
meteoroid strikes the ground at an angle.

The next person should throw a similar
sized pebble at about the same speed, but
at a slight angle. Discuss the shape of the
new crater and predict how the shape of
the crater will change as the angle of
impact increases.

Continue throwing pebbles into the basin,
taking care to throw the same sized rocks
at the same speed, but at varying angles.
Discuss further the shape of the craters.

Record the results on your data sheets.

What's Going On
The results of this test are often very surprising.
One would normally expect the crater to have
an oblong shape on extremely wide-angle
impacts. In fact, all craters that we have seen
on the Moon and Earth are pretty much circular.
The reason is that an explosion occurs on
impact and the forces associated with an
explosion are always spherically symmetrical.