English: Recent Activities

There are 2 parts to this activity and they should both be carried out prior to the Deep Impact mission. The aims are to learn about the features of craters.

In this activity the students work out how long it takes light to travel from comet Tempel 1 to Earth, and how long after the collision in the Deep Impact mission we will see this event.

The aim of this activity is to use vectors and Pythagoras’ theorem to work out the speed at which the impactor hits the comet.

This activity is suitable for KS2 and above.

In this activity the students calculate how far away the fly-by spacecraft will be when the collision occurs. This is actually one in a whole series of questions that can only be accurately answered by using geometry.

This crossword activity is suitable for KS3.

The aim of this activity is to calculate the kinetic energy of the impact and to learn how the kinetic energy changed when NASA decided to alter the weight of the impactor.

Meteorite impacts are devastating events, but it is not only the impact itself, which causes destruction, but the effects of these phenomena are just as catastrophic. From stratigraphic records and accounts of recent impact events, we can build up a picture of the various resulting disasters encountered when these space rocks collide with the Earth.

Overview

This lesson aims to introduce pupils to the different effects of a meteorite impact and develop understanding of the various mitigation techniques for these events.