Craters Investigation Essay, Research Paper

RESEARCHOn the Moon, craters usually measure up to 200 (320

miles) or more in diameter. Meteorites hitting the lunar surface at high

velocity produced most of the large craters. Many of the smaller ones ? those

measuring less than 1km (0.6 mile) across could have been formed by explosive

volcanic activity.Many craters have a surrounding ring: this is usually

quite low although a typical one may be about 1500m (4920 feet) above the

surrounding landscape. In many cases, there is a central peak or several peaks

within a crater.The darker area?s of the Moon, known as maria, have

relatively few craters. They are thought to be huge lava flows that spread over

an area after most of the craters have already been formed.APPARATUS ·

1 Tub of sand ·

Magnets ·

Metal Ball Bearings ·

Wooden Sticks ·

1 RulerMETHOD1.

Set up the apparatus (as shown in the diagram)The diagram here sho 2.

Lift the Ball Bearing to a height of 10cm and drop into the tub of

sand. 3.

Place one of the wooden sticks horizontally over the crater, which has

been made. Place the other wooden stick vertically in the crater, which has

been made. Make a pencil mark where the two sticks cross. This gives the depth

of the crater. 4.

Repeat steps 2 and 3 at 10cm intervals (20cm, 30cm etc) up to 50cm. 5. Record in Results Table FAIR TEST? The factors, which would effect the size of a crater, are:·

The weight of the ball bearing ·

The size of the ball bearing ·

The depth of the sand ·

The material which makes the ball bearing ·

Speed at which the ball bearing is thrownIn order to make this experiment as fair as possible I am going to vary

the height of the ball bearings at 10cm intervals. I am going to use the same

ball bearing and the same depth of sand throughout in order to make this a

controlled, fair test.PREDICTIONI predict that, in this experiment, the higher the ball

bearing the greater the size of the crater. The scientific knowledge which

supports this is that the Ball Bearing has Gravitational Potential Energy and

so when it is higher up it gains even more energy and this has a greater force

on the sand which will make the bigger crater. RESULTS TABLE DEPTH WIDTH Size of Ball Bearing 25mm 13mm 25mm 13mm 10 5mm 4mm 2mm 2mm 20mm 21mm 12mm 11mm 20 9mm 9mm 5mm 5mm 21mm 21mm 13mm 13mm 30 11mm 10mm 5mm 5mm 22mm 28mm 14mm 14mm 40 12mm 12mm 6mm 6mm 25mm 23mm 15mm 15mm 50 13mm 13mm 6mm 6mm 24mm 24mm 16mm 16mm 60 15mm 16mm 8mm 8mm 25mm 25mm 17mm 17mm 70 17mm 17mm 9mm 9mm 26mm 26mm 19mm 19mm This is my table of results for the

experiment. I have obtained evidence from these results by drawing a graph.

This will enable me to analyse my results more clearly. ANALYSIS The factor, which I decided to

concentrate on for this particular experiment, was how height effected the size

of a crater. In my prediction I stated that the higher up the Ball bearing the

greater the size of the crater. This was based on the scientific knowledge that

as the Ball Bearing gets higher it gains more Gravitational Potential Energy,

therefore there is a bigger force which in turn will make the size of the

crater bigger. I am pleased because by looking at the Results Table above, it is clear

to see that the higher up the Ball bearing the bigger the crater. This supports

what I predicted using the knowledge I already had.EVALUATIONI am quite pleased with the results that I have obtained. There are no

anomalous ones which is good and I feel that the procedure was fairly good

although there are quite a few ways in which the method could be improved. For

example you could take a wider range of readings or repeat the experiment a few

more times in order to be more accurate. You could drop the Ball Bearings with

different amounts of force to see if that would make a difference to the

results. The procedure is quite reliable however there are certain things, which

could be done to make this experiment more realistic in relation to craters on

the moon. For example you could have the force coming down in different

directions, as this is what it would be like on the moon. However in this

method we only dropped the ball bearings from one particular direction. There

are also a few factors, which have to be considered. For example the moon is

not made of sand however we used sand in this experiment. The moon is not flat

either and the tub of sand we used in the experiment was actually flat. The

meteors were also even in the experiment and they wouldn?t be even on the moon

and there would be no gravity on the moon either. There were a couple of anomalous results in my graph. This could be due

to the fact that I did not measure the size of the crater carefully enough or I

did not pay enough attention when dropping the Ball Bearing from different

heights. In order to resolve this I would need to repeat the experiment to obtain

a wider range of results. Despite all of these factors we are able to make some kind of

conclusions from the experiment. It was useful to see how different factors

effect the size of craters on the moon and with further repetition and ranges

of readings this experiment could be improved.