Glossary term: Crater
Description: A crater is a circular depression in the surface of a solid planet, moon, or other small object in space. Some craters are volcanic, especially on Earth and Venus, but most are impact craters, caused by the impact of a large space rock or comet nucleus. There are dozens of impact craters on the surface of Earth, and thousands on the Moon. The maria, the large, darker, circular features on the Moon are giant impact craters, formed billions of years ago, and then filled with lava, which has since solidified.
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Term and definition status: This term and its definition have been approved by a research astronomer and a teacher
The OAE Multilingual Glossary is a project of the IAU Office of Astronomy for Education (OAE) in collaboration with the IAU Office of Astronomy Outreach (OAO). The terms and definitions were chosen, written and reviewed by a collective effort from the OAE, the OAE Centers and Nodes, the OAE National Astronomy Education Coordinators (NAECs) and other volunteers. You can find a full list of credits here. All glossary terms and their definitions are released under a Creative Commons CC BY-4.0 license and should be credited to "IAU OAE".
Related Media
Ceres
Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA / Justin Cowart
License: CC-BY-2.0 Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic icons
Related Activities
Impact Craters
astroEDU educational activity (links to astroEDU website) Description: A literal Earth-Shattering experimentLicense: CC-BY-4.0 Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) icons
Tags: History , Impact , Experiment Age Ranges: 10-12 , 12-14 , 14-16 Education Level: Middle School , Primary , Secondary Areas of Learning: Guided-discovery learning , Modelling , Traditional Science Experiment Costs: Low Cost Duration: 1 hour Group Size: Group Skills: Analysing and interpreting data , Asking questions , Constructing explanations , Engaging in argument from evidence , Using mathematics and computational thinking
Meteoroids, Meteors and Meteorites
astroEDU educational activity (links to astroEDU website) Description: Unveiling the mystery of "shooting stars": meteors, meteorites and meteroidsLicense: CC-BY-4.0 Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) icons
Tags: Geology Age Ranges: 6-8 , 8-10 , 10-12 , 12-14 Education Level: Middle School , Primary Areas of Learning: Interactive Lecture Costs: Low Cost Duration: 1 hour 30 mins Group Size: Group Skills: Analysing and interpreting data , Asking questions , Communicating information , Engaging in argument from evidence
Age that crater!
astroEDU educational activity (links to astroEDU website) Description: Learn how to age craters with this Predict, Explain, Observe, Explain Activity!License: CC-BY-4.0 Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) icons
Tags: Craters , Game , Maps , Geology Age Ranges: 4-6 , 6-8 , 8-10 Education Level: Middle School , Primary Areas of Learning: Observation based , Social Research Costs: Low Cost Duration: 1 hour Group Size: Group Skills: Asking questions , Communicating information , Constructing explanations , Developing and using models , Engaging in argument from evidence
