Astronomy Class Summary 9/29/14

with Leigh Ann Yoder

Brace for Impact!

First, a great big THANK YOU! to the students for coming prepared to class each week. Everyone seems to be completing the weekly assignments and returning their library books. It is encouraging to hear the students comment on their weekly library books with one another, and there is always a race to grab the most desired books.

We began class with a very brief discussion of Mercury. We narrowed our focus to the large number of craters present on Mercury, and introduced the week's activity.

As a class we performed an Impact Crater Experiment.  We tested three different sized meteors (rocks), each dropped from four different heights onto our 'Mercury Like' surface. We added dry powder paint so we could more easily identify the ray lengths produced from the impacts. After collecting data, we calculated averages and made these conclusions:

1.  Crater width is only dependent on the size/weight and orientation of the meteor when it impacts the surface. Height of the drop does not increase the crater width.
2.  Crater depth is dependent on meteor size/weight and height of the drop. A larger size and higher drop both produce a larger crater depth.
3.  Ray lengths are affected by both meteor size/weight and height of drop.  Again, larger size and higher drop produce larger rays. Many of our rays could not be measured since they were way beyond our container.

From our simple experiment we were able to better imagine an actual meteor hitting a planet and the impact it would have.

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Next week Ranger Bob will be visiting us with a slew of Sun activities including his specialized hydrogen-alpha telescope to safely observe the sun, solar flares, and sunspots. We are all praying for a sunny day! I reminded the students that they are to be on their best behavior for our guest teacher. I know they will impress him with their knowledge.

We discussed that experiments do not always lead to conclusions, but more often lead to more questions and more experiments. We all agreed that it would be of interest to perform the experiment on a larger scale. It would also be beneficial to simulate earth-like surfaces such as dirt, rock, sand, or water to see how a meteor would impact different areas of earth. Ask your student if they can come up with other experiments that would be useful.  

(***Spoiler*** What about meteors that have the same size, but different weights?) Be forewarned--your student may want to try this at home!

Homework

Mandatory:
Read ECA Chapter 2
Lending Library Book
Bring in shoebox (I need just a few more)

Optional:
ACG Chapter 5 & 6
NB pg 22, 23, 24, 28, 31

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