Impact Craters

Explore 9.3 Impact Craters to learn about the cratering process and how it helps determine geological ages on the Moon and other celestial bodies.
Why would astronomers think there were volcanoes on the moon? Isn’t it obvious that they are impact craters? Well, volcanoes and impact craters look a lot alike. In fact, even on the earth, it can be easy to confuse the two. It happened to me when I went to Crater Lake National Park. Check out the video Confusing Craters and Volcanoes
Read 9.4 The Origin of the Moon to understand the giant impact hypothesis, which proposes the origin of the Moon from a collision with a Mars-sized object.
Astronomers use simulations to model the formation of the moon. We can do the same thing with Universe Sandbox - a space-based physics simulator / video game. The game isn’t free, but there are a ton of videos across the web showing realistic astronomy simulations using Universe Sandbox. I’ve created my own simulation of the Formation of the Moon.