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Whip Up a Moon-like Crater
(from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory)
Cake pan, flour, cake sprinkles, cocoa, spoon or sifter, two or three small rocks of different sizes and shapes to use as "impactors"
- Spread about an inch of flour into your cake pan.
- Add a layer of sprinkles. (No need to completely cover the flour layer.)
- Add a third layer of cocoa by sprinkling it over the top with a spoon or sifting it for a more even coating.
- Simulate a rock impacting the surface, by holding one of the rocks above your head and dropping it into the cake pan. Observe the "ejecta pattern" created by the impact.
- Try dropping different size rocks and different angles and heights, and see how the ejecta pattern differs from one impact to the next.