Researchers have learned that the more energy an asteroid has when it strikes the moon surface, the larger the resulting crater.

The heights and the masses of objects relate directly to gravitational potential energy. In fact, this has been so well studied that we have a mathematical equation to calculate how much energy these objects have. Engineers often use these equations to make predictions about the amount of energy contained in systems. Potential energy = mass x gravity x height. The gravity term stays the same for all of the experiments being done.

What else might influence the size of the craters made on the moon? That's right, the speed at which an asteroid is moving also affects its energy. Which do you think has more energy—an asteroid traveling really fast or one traveling really slowly? That's right, kinetic energy increases as speed increases. We have another equation for this. Kinetic energy = 0.5 x mass x velocity2; You know about exponents, right? What can we infer from the exponent, velocity squared, in this equation? What happens if the velocity (or speed) doubles? That's right: the amount of energy quadruples if the velocity (or speed) doubles.

The impact crater that an egg leaves in the flour scales linearly at small masses and heights. Or put simply, the depth of the crater doubles if the mass or the height that the egg is dropped from doubles.