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experiment
Investigate what happens when a really big meteorite hits the Earth.
You will drop small projectiles (model meteorites) on different surfaces (flour, sand, plaster of Paris). You will observe shapes and sizes of your impact craters and compare them with big craters on the Earth and planets.
Some good questions for your research are:
- There are small craters and big craters. Why are some craters bigger than others?
- Scientists say the Earth and other planets formed by collisions of asteroids and meteorites. If the Earth is 4.6 billion years old, why don’t we find impact craters older than 2 billion years?
- Why do the Moon and some planets show more impact craters than the Earth?
- How much energy does an impact produce, e.g. compared with a nuclear bomb?
- What are the chances that I will be hit by a meteorite, or my home town destroyed by an asteroid?
 Click here to watch film
Here you will find the ‘Cookbook’ for the impact experiments:
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Last Updated ( Saturday, 02 September 2006 )
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