When the girls looked at this photograph of the Moon, they noticed circles on its surface and wanted to know how they were made.
I told them that out in space, besides stars and planets, there are rocks (asteroids and comets) which move through space and at some time crashed into the Moon. Where they hit the Moon, they formed a crater, and we can see how this happens with a model.
I prepared a crater-making kit for them.
It is made up of:
- a bowl of flour
- a spoon
- some aluminium foil
- some marbles
Two marbles have been wrapped in aluminium foil, ready to be dropped. The “tail” of the marble allows the children to lift it straight up after impact, with minimum damage to the crater.
First, the spoon is used to shape a rocky Moon surface, and the space rock is held over it.
Then the space rock is dropped into the flour.
It is then carefully raised by gripping the “tail” and pulling straight up.
As can be imagined, the girls enjoyed making craters using different-sized marbles and dropping them from different heights!
