• Shallow pan (or sandbox)
• Flour or fine sand
• Marbles or marble-sized stones

1. Put some flour or sand in the pan. Have at least 3 cm covering the bottom. Alternatively, you can also go out into a sand box.
2. Gently drop or throw the marbles or stones into the flour or sand starting at about 50 cm above the pan.
3. Vary the size of the meteor, the speed of the meteor and the angle of impact of the meteor. What are the results?

Have you ever seen “shooting stars”? They aren’t stars at all -- they are actually small chunks of dust, rock, iron or ice that fall towards the Earth. These "shooting stars" are called meteors.

Sometimes, a meteor is big enough that it doesn’t completely get vaporized on its trip through the atmosphere. This only happens rarely and when a meteor does make it to the ground, it is called a meteorite. Once in a while, a meteorite is large enough to make a crater – a bowl-shaped hole in the Earth that can be meters or kilometres across.

When meteors make it through the atmosphere land on the surface of the Earth as meteorites, these space rocks can teach scientists a lot about space. Many scientists study meteorites to learn about what kinds of matter are in outer space. Some scientists have even started looking for proof of alien life on these meteorites!