Transcript Moon Craters

Moon Craters
Craters are the scars leftover when something hits an
object in space.
There is a lot of “stuff” floating around in space, and
gravity pulls everything together. The primary things
floating around are comets, made of ice and dirt, and rocks
made of stone and iron.
On the Moon we
see tons of craters,
yet on Earth we
see few. You
would expect
Earth to be hit by
more things,
because the bigger
Earth has 6 times
the gravity of the
Moon.
Two factors can explain this lack of
craters on Earth. First, the Earth has an
atmosphere, where the Moon has none.
Small rocks falling towards us heat up,
and burn up due to friction with our air.
These same rocks would hit the Moon
and leave a crater.
The second reason you see so many craters on the Moon and
few on Earth is we have wind, liquid water and plate tectonics
which erode and change the surface of the Earth, erasing
craters.
Different terms apply to different things falling toward Earth.
Meteor: any small object burning up in our atmosphere. A
shooting star is the same thing.
A meteoroid is a small rock floating around in space. An
asteroid is a big one.
A meteorite is a rock on Earth that came from space.
A comet is a big chunk of
ice and dirt orbiting the
Sun.
Mare
Crater Features
Crater wall
Central Peak
Rays
You can tell the
relative age of craters
by how they overlap