![]() It is also very helpful for seeing craters. This image is color coded to allow you to figure out the tallest (white) and deepest places (blue) on the surface of Mars. The next image of Mars is a radar image, similar to the one for Venus. There are also at least two visible volcanoes near the left hand side of the image. In the center of the image is a huge canyon (Valles Marinaras). We have already considered the surface of the Earth and the Moon, but look again at the surfaces in order to refresh you memory about their appearance. Earth and the Moon: Figure 3 and Figure 4.Are there many impact craters? How would you rate the age of Venus's surface. Try to describe what you are seeing on the surface. But the surface of Venus has been mapped using radar to penetrate the clouds (right image). So we can never directly see the surface of Venus (left image). Venus is always completely cloud covered. Rate the relative age of the surface compared to the Earth and Moon. For each planet try to decide, based on the crater density, whether the planet has a young surface (like Earth) an old surface (like the Moon) or somewhere in between. When doing this you can compare to the Earth and Moon. You can now continue the process of comparing the relative age on the surface of different planets by examining the amount of cratering on the surface. Part 2: The Terrestrial Planets and the Moon: Comparing relative Ages. In other words, where to you suspect the oldest surface on the Earth is and where is the youngest? Explain why you think this.įinally, if you compare the amount of craters on the surface of the Moon to that of the Earth which surface would you say is younger and which is older? Explain. Using what you learned about the relative age of the Lunar surface, come up with a relative age for various regions on the Earth. Now use what you know about activity of the Earth's crust such as plate tectonics, mountain ranges and volcanoes to conjecture why there are fewer carters in the various areas where they are missing. What is true about the surface at these places?.Where are most the craters found and where are most missing?.How might that affect the survival of impact craters? Think about what the surface of the Earth is like in the places where the fewest craters are located.Where are the majority of craters? Where are there very few?.Click on North America and carefully examine how the craters (the red stars in the image) are distributed in the image. Given what you have seen, write your thoughts about what happens to craters on Earth as time goes by.How do they appear compared to the craters on the Moon? Come up with some ideas why the Earth craters appear different than the Lunar craters.Choose a continent and look as some of the craters. This site shows the location of the 160 known craters on Planet Earth. Open the Planetary and Space Science Center (PASSC) website. What caused the Lunar Maria to have a different age than the highlands?.Explain again how you were able to tell the difference between the relative age of the Lunar Highlands and the Lunar Maria. Return back to Lesson 6 (What can we learn by examining the Moon's surface). Although all objects in the Solar System are about the same age, features on the surface can be different, making the surface features older or younger either from one planet to the next or even for different locations on a given world. In fact, the Earth, the Moon and all the planets and moons in the Solar System are about 4.6 billion years old. Investigations of the Earth and the Moon show that both worlds are about the same age, and that both are extremely old. ![]() In this activity, students investigate the properties of planets and moons in the solar system. Lesson Ten: Surface Activities on Planets and Moons Lesson Description ![]()
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