Barringer Crater, Arizona

    Welcome to the meteor impact group! We have been investigating meteor impacts.  Although most meteors that hit the earth are small, some have been quite large.  Our group is made up of four students and one and a half mentors at Hand Middle School.  We want to see if we can understand how the energy of the meteorite impact influences the size of the crater that it forms and size of the ejecta blanket that is created!  The energy of the impact is determined mainly by the size of the meteor that hits the ground. Most importantly, we are just plain interested in meteors.  When you stop to think about it, its really quite amazing that we can come in contact with material from outer space.

Some Words You Will See in our webpage:

'Ejecta' is the term used to describe the material that is thrown away from the point that the meteor collides with the ground.

'Crater' is the large depression that is created where a meteor impacts the ground.

Who are we?

Four of us are students from Hand Middle School.  The other third of are group are graduate students in the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of South Carolina.

           Students:  Iaesha  Jarrell  Bryent  Farrnington

           Mentors:   David and Ben

Our Experiment

Its tough to explore meteors in a hands on fashion in a class room, so we tried to come up with a simple experiment.  This experiment was also designed to show us a little something about physics. Follow the link and see what we did.......come along!

Exciting Links About Meteors

Click here for a list of suggested websites if you are interested in learning about meteorites.