It is easy to find craters on the Moon, but we do not run across them on Earth very often.
Photo Credit: NASA
One reason there are not many craters on the Earth is that few meteors pass through the Earth’s atmosphere. The Moon does not have thick gasses forming a protective atmosphere like Earth. Another important difference in between the Moon and the Earth is that it rains on Earth.
Try this experiment to see how rain affects craters.
Put powdered sugar or baking powder into the bowl, filling it a little over an inch high. Next, cover up the sugar with a thin layer of cocoa powder or brown sugar.
Put the bowl on a piece of newspaper, or go outside, so you do not make a mess while creating your crater. Drop pebbles, representing meteors, into the bowl. Watch as the impact of the pebbles creates craters.
Now spray the surface with a water bottle to see how rain affects craters.
The brown sugar is filling in the crater so that the surface is more even again. How do you think rain and wind affect craters over thousands and thousands of years?
