Alien Anomalies

I thought it may be educational to do a small amount of research on the shape of craters and what we can expect as far as orthodox science currently tells us.

The answers to the Ask a Scientist link below are geared to the age of the questioner and so are not necessarily very detailed.

Further articles and links on this subject go here in this thread. NOT examples of strange shaped craters please. Start another thread.


========================
Shapes of Craters Formed in Plaster of Paris by Ultra-Speed Pellets
John S. Rinehart and W. C. White

Michelson Laboratory, U. S. Naval Ordnance Test Station, Inyokern, China Lake, California

Summary
Observations have been made on the craters produced in plaster of Paris targets by steel pellets that weighed 2 g and impacted at a velocity of 2.5 km/sec and by aluminum pellets that weighed 23 g and impacted at a velocity of 4.7 km/sec. The angle of impact was varied from normal incidence to 75°. For angles of incidence between 0° and 45°, the mouth of the crater was substantially circular. At 60°, it had roughly the shape of an arrowhead. At 75° obliquity, the pellet ricocheted and produced an elliptical crater.

The area of the mouth of the crater in every case was many times the area of the impacting particle. The craters were characterized by a large bowl-shaped excavation from 12 in. to 1 in. in depth with a shaft that extended a few inches into the plaster and whose area was approximately that of the pellet.

The volumes of the holes have been measured and related to the impacting energy and momenta of the respective pellets.

cost of full article < 30 dollars

=========================================

Ask a scientist K3-K12 age ranges


Shapes of Craters
Actually, impacts at a grazing angle will also make a round hole. This was
a controversial point regarding Meteor Crater in Arizona, which was
basically the first site recognized on Earth as a meteor impact site. The
fact that no meteorite fragments were found in the earth below the center
of the crater was initially taken as evidence against the hypothesis that
the structure was an impact crater, but further research showed that if the
impact is very energetic, such as a rifle bullet fired into mud, the
resulting hole is round, even if the impact angle is quite flat.



-- Edited by qmantoo on Thursday 25th of November 2010 08:31:36 AM