Impact crater

High school (ages 12+)
Space & Astronomy

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/impact-crater

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. What is the impact dynamics?Involves hypervelocity impact, shock wave propagation, excavation, and transient cavity collapse
2. What is the preservation factors?Dependent on the absence of significant erosion, volcanism, and tectonic activity
3. How do impact craters look?Small craters are bowl-shaped with a raised rim. Larger craters can have a central peak, terraced walls, and even rings around them.
4. Why do some planets have many craters while Earth has fewer?Planets that don’t have much weather or moving land keep their old craters visible. On Earth, erosion, volcanoes, and moving continents erase many craters.

Transient Cavity: The initial, unstable depression formed immediately after an impact event.
Astrobleme: A highly eroded or buried impact structure, often recognized by subsurface anomalies.
Late Heavy Bombardment: A hypothesized period of intense asteroid and comet impacts in the inner solar system ~4.1 to 3.8 billion years ago.