Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Jan 2001
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001psrd.repte..45c&link_type=abstract
Planetary Science Research Discoveries
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Moon, Lunar Cataclysm, Lunar Meteorite
Scientific paper
The Moon has been pummeled with asteroids and comets throughout its long, 4.5 billion-year history. While even a single impact can be an impressive event, there seems to have been one particularly spectacular era about 3.9 billion years ago which saw the formation of 1700 craters 100 kilometers in size or larger, resurfacing 80% of the Moon's crust. This intense bombardment, known as the "Lunar Cataclysm," was first suspected nearly 30 years ago, based on the rocks returned by the Apollo astronauts. However, because the Apollo Moon rocks all come from a relatively small region on the Moon, many scientists worried that the effect was really just a local pounding.
In the December 1, 2000 issue of Science, my colleagues, Tim Swindle and David Kring, and I report that this intense bombardment is also reflected in lunar meteorites. Because lunar meteorites are a more random sampling of the Moon than the Apollo samples, the Lunar Cataclysm does indeed seem to have been a Moon-wide phenomenon. The Earth would not have escaped a similar beating during this time -- and neither would life on Earth.
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