Guiding Question: What are the factors that affect the appearance of impact craters?
My Hypothesis: I think that the mass, speed and angle of the meteor affect the appearance of impact craters because they affect how deep the floor of the crater is and how far the walls of the crater are from each other.
Materials:
My Hypothesis: I think that the mass, speed and angle of the meteor affect the appearance of impact craters because they affect how deep the floor of the crater is and how far the walls of the crater are from each other.
Materials:
- Safety goggles
- tray
- flour
- notebook
- spoon
- small and large marbles
- ruler (cm)
- Excel
- Word
And from that data I produced these graphs:
Data Analysis:
This is a lot of data when you look at it. Analyzing it wasn't easy. I found that it was much easier to see trends in the graphs, rather than the raw data.
From what I see in my graphs, I can tell that the length of the eject is most affected by the height of drop. In our miniaturized version of Earth and meteors, the height of the drop also affected speed, so I can say that the speed that the meteor is falling has a great impact on the length of the ejecta from the collision. I can also see that the faster the meteor is falling when it hits earth, the deeper the crater will be. The speed of the meteor has a significant impact on the depth of the crater. An additional observation that I can make from my data and charts is that the speed of the meteor does not have a large impact on the diameter of the crater. That logically makes sense. Even when the meteor is falling extremely fast, it can't leave a crater that is all that much bigger than the meteor itself.
Conclusion: My guiding question was "What are the factors that affect the appearance of impact craters?". Through my testing, I found that the speed of the meteor has a significant impact on the depth the crater and length of the resulting ejecta, but the speed does not have a significant impact on the diameter of the crater. My hypothesis was inaccurate because it didn't relate to the testing that I did. So I guess it counts as "incorrect."
This is a lot of data when you look at it. Analyzing it wasn't easy. I found that it was much easier to see trends in the graphs, rather than the raw data.
From what I see in my graphs, I can tell that the length of the eject is most affected by the height of drop. In our miniaturized version of Earth and meteors, the height of the drop also affected speed, so I can say that the speed that the meteor is falling has a great impact on the length of the ejecta from the collision. I can also see that the faster the meteor is falling when it hits earth, the deeper the crater will be. The speed of the meteor has a significant impact on the depth of the crater. An additional observation that I can make from my data and charts is that the speed of the meteor does not have a large impact on the diameter of the crater. That logically makes sense. Even when the meteor is falling extremely fast, it can't leave a crater that is all that much bigger than the meteor itself.
Conclusion: My guiding question was "What are the factors that affect the appearance of impact craters?". Through my testing, I found that the speed of the meteor has a significant impact on the depth the crater and length of the resulting ejecta, but the speed does not have a significant impact on the diameter of the crater. My hypothesis was inaccurate because it didn't relate to the testing that I did. So I guess it counts as "incorrect."
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