How Does Temperature Affect Crater Size
Introduction
The moons surface is riddled with craters, formed by many asteroids smashing into its surface. These crater differed greatly in size, making it easy to assume that the larger the asteroid, the larger the crater. While this is partially true, it is not the only factor that controls crater size. This experiment will be exploring the asteroids speed and how this effects a craters size.
Aim
This scientific experiment was conducted to find how the impact speed/energy of an asteroid affects the diameter/size of a crater.
Method
A golf ball was dropped into a bucket of sand from heights ranging between 1-5 meters. For every height, the golf was dropped 3 times, allowing for replicates. When the gold ball hit the sand in the bucket …show more content…
clearly shows that as the drop height of the golf ball increases, the crater size and the kinetic energy also increase. This is more clearly illustrated in figure 1 and 2.
Figure 1 shows that as the velocity increases, the crater size also increases. Like wise, figure 2 shows that as the kinetic energy increases the crater size also increase.
The trendiness in both figure 1 and 2 suggest that there is a point where more speed/kinetic energy will not increase the crater size.
Discussion
Figure 1 shows that there is a clear connection between the velocity of the ball and the mean diameter of the crater. This can be determined as the data points form a line and are not randomly scattered. This means a trend line can be fitted to the points. The most accurate trend line, the one with the largest r^2 number was the power trend line. This trend line shows that as the velocity of the gold ball increases i.e. the distance it is dropped from increases, the diameter of the crater also increases. However, as it can be seen that the trend line is forming a crest, which means that at some point, the size of the creator will not increase even when a larger velocity is achieved by the golf
The moons surface is riddled with craters, formed by many asteroids smashing into its surface. These crater differed greatly in size, making it easy to assume that the larger the asteroid, the larger the crater. While this is partially true, it is not the only factor that controls crater size. This experiment will be exploring the asteroids speed and how this effects a craters size.
Aim
This scientific experiment was conducted to find how the impact speed/energy of an asteroid affects the diameter/size of a crater.
Method
A golf ball was dropped into a bucket of sand from heights ranging between 1-5 meters. For every height, the golf was dropped 3 times, allowing for replicates. When the gold ball hit the sand in the bucket …show more content…
clearly shows that as the drop height of the golf ball increases, the crater size and the kinetic energy also increase. This is more clearly illustrated in figure 1 and 2.
Figure 1 shows that as the velocity increases, the crater size also increases. Like wise, figure 2 shows that as the kinetic energy increases the crater size also increase.
The trendiness in both figure 1 and 2 suggest that there is a point where more speed/kinetic energy will not increase the crater size.
Discussion
Figure 1 shows that there is a clear connection between the velocity of the ball and the mean diameter of the crater. This can be determined as the data points form a line and are not randomly scattered. This means a trend line can be fitted to the points. The most accurate trend line, the one with the largest r^2 number was the power trend line. This trend line shows that as the velocity of the gold ball increases i.e. the distance it is dropped from increases, the diameter of the crater also increases. However, as it can be seen that the trend line is forming a crest, which means that at some point, the size of the creator will not increase even when a larger velocity is achieved by the golf