Marble Dropping Lab

Guiding Question: What are the factors that affect the appearance of impact craters? How do scientists use craters to tell the the relative age of them?

Hypothesis: I think the speed , how hard the meteor hits and the angle of impact is important because if it's faster it becomes harder and has more impact on it, which causes the crater to be deeper.

Trial Height of drop (cm) Diameter of crater (cm) Length of Ejecta Depth of Crater (cm) Observations
1 30 2 0.1 0.8 Made a perfect circle, very very little flour went flying
2 30 1.8 0.1 0.7 Much like the first time, no significant changes
3 30 1.9 0.1 0.9 The hole was a bit deeper this time
Average 30 1.9 0.1 0.8

Trial
1 60 2.1 0.2 1.4 Much deeper than 30cm and made a bigger mess
2 60 2.1 0.1 1.3 Slightly less deep
3 60 2.2 0.2 1.5 Much deeper this time
Average

1 90 2 0.2 1.5 Almost a perfect circle
2 90 2.2 0.1 1.6 Deeper than first 90cm trial
3 90 2.4 0.2 1.7 Even deeper
Average 2.2 0.2    0.16666666666667

1 200 2.3 0.3 2.1 The deepest yet, the ejecta was larger
2 200 2.9 0.4 2.4 By far, the widest diameter yet
3 200 2.6 0.5 2.6 Slightly less wide but deeper
Average 2.6 0.4 2.3


Data Analysis: In my group when we were doing this lab I saw that when we increase the height where we dropped it from the marble went deeper and had a bigger diameter, depth of crater and the length of ejecta, which was true what I said in my hypothesis.


Conclusion:My hypothesis was correct saying that " I think the speed , how hard the meteor hits and the angle of impact is important because if it's faster it becomes harder and has more impact on it, which causes the crater to be deeper." As you can see in the data above it increase on a same rate and the average is mostly the same.

Further Inquiry: In this lab I learned a lot of information in this lab. What I learned was that how craters were formed and where they were located. As my further inquiry I saw that the rates were really similar to 
each other in all three trails.