Hyunji Mun 2018 Science Mr.

Parsons 19 Feb 2014 Impact Craters Background Theory Asteroids or meteors falling onto the surface of the moon create craters. Then, what is the difference between a meteor and an asteroid? The main difference between the two would be the their location. An asteroid is always in space and a meteor is any object that has entered an atmosphere. So a rock travelling the space would be called an asteroid, change to meteor when it enters an atmosphere and also to add onto that, a meteor will become a meteorite if it hits the ground. Aim The aim of this experiment is to find out the effect on the diameter and the depth of the crest due to the height of the meteor (shot put). Prediction I predict that as the height from the shot put to the sand increases, the measurements of the diameter and the depth of the crest will increase together. Diagram

Variables Independent variable: Height of the shot put, which will be measured with a meter ruler Dependent variable: Diameter and the depth, which will be measured with a 15cm ruler Controlled variable: Mass, diameter and material of shot put

Materials 1kg shot put A rectangular container with about a volume of 18500cm3 Pile of sand which will fill up the container about 5.2cm high A sieve with 10 mesh A table 2 toothpicks 1 long bamboo stick that is 10cm long A meter ruler 15cm ruler A support stand A clamp Method 1. Sieve the sand with the sieve and carefully pour it into the container. 2. Make sure the sand is flat using the 15cm ruler. 3. Stick the clamp to the support stand and place it on the table. 4. Place the container below the table. 5. Hold the meter ruler with the clamp and make sure the ruler just touches the sand in the container. 6. Hold the shot put at 10cm above and drop it onto the sand. 7. Carefully take out the shot put out of the sand so the sand does not pile up in the center of the crater. 8. Poke in a toothpick at each end of the crater that the shot put made. Then use the 15cm ruler to measure the diameter of the crater. 9. Place the bamboo stick on top of the crater and make sure the stick goes through the center of the crater. Then measure the depth with the 15cm ruler. 10. Repeat these steps increasing the height by 10cm. Safety Points Always be gentle with the shot put because its very heavy. If possible, hold the sand container with another person because it might be a bit heavy for only one person. You can obtain more accurate results by holding a ruler or some kind of straight stick beneath the shot put when you drop it. This will make the height more accurate. Results Depth of the sand: 5.2cm

Data analysis I used the averages of the 3 trials to create the first chart. You can see that the diameter of the crater in the last three trials increase significantly. The second chart is the kinetic energy, which was calculated with the height, mass and acceleration due to gravity. The controlled variable was the mass and the independent variable was the height so the kinetic energy is affected by the height. Conclusion As I have predicted, you can see that the measurements of the diameter and the depth increase as the height increases. So I came to a conclusion that the height of the meteor will affect the diameter, and the depth of a crater. You can see that the last three trials are increasing immensely in the first chart. I think this happened because we did last three trials on a different day from other trials and because the sand was more dry. So I think that the wetness of the sand affected the results. You can see that in the second chart, the points are increasing by same amount because I increased the height by 10cm and did not change the mass. The kinetic energy might not be the exact same as our experiment because we can never be sure if we dropped the shot put at the exact height. Evaluation I can improve this lab by making the results as accurate as possible. The limitations to this lab were time and equipment. We didnt have enough time to do all the trials in one day, which I believe have affected the results. Also, we didnt have many choices for materials, which might have improved the accuracy of our results. We got some poor results that did not fit into the pattern. Some of them were just small differences but others had big differences. As I have said before I think this was caused by the dryness of the sand. For students who are doing the experiment next time, they should manage their time well and try to finish the experiment in one day to get as many data as possible and try to use equipment or other ways to obtain more accurate results.