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Solar System

Focus on ancient bombardment

Nature volume 485, pages 44–45 (2012)Cite this article

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The latest studies of asteroid impacts on Earth and the Moon beginning about 450 million years after the formation of the Solar System provide insight into the duration, number and size of these events.

Two papers published on Nature's website today present results that have implications for the histories of large-body impacts on the early Earth and Moon. Bottke et al.1 (page 78) propose a significant addition to the widely accepted 'Nice model' for Solar System evolution. Their model greatly increases the number of asteroid impacts expected to have occurred in the Earth–Moon system before 2 billion years ago. Johnson and Melosh2 (page 75) infer the sizes of ancient impacts by analysing data on ejecta deposits found in ancient sediments. Their analysis uses a computer model3 that describes how silicate droplets condense from impact-induced vapour clouds.Footnote 1

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Figure 1: Record of an ancient impact.

Notes

  1. *This News & Views article and the papers under discussion1,2 were published online on 25 April 2012.

References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Frank T. Kyte is at the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095–1567, USA.,

    Frank T. Kyte

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  1. Frank T. Kyte
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Correspondence to Frank T. Kyte.

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Kyte, F. Focus on ancient bombardment. Nature 485, 44–45 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature11190

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