Mathematics – Logic
Scientific paper
Sep 2006
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006dps....38.6701m&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #38, #67.01; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 38, p.618
Mathematics
Logic
Scientific paper
The impact crater record of Mars, Venus, Mercury and the Moon is owed to two populations of impactors that are distinguishable by their size distributions. We show that the impactors responsible for the 'old' population of craters were virtually identical in size distribution to the present main belt asteroids; the second impactor population, inferred from the lightly cratered surface units, matches closely the size distribution of the Near Earth Asteroids. These results support the idea that an inner Solar System impact cataclysm, the so-called Late Heavy Bombardment, occurred 3.9 Gy ago. They provide evidence that identifies the main asteroid belt as the source of those impactors; comets cannot have been a significant impactor source for the old crater record. A plausible explanation is that many asteroids were ejected from the main belt on a short timescale, 10^7 y, by sweeping gravitational resonances during an epoch of orbital migration of the giant planets in early Solar System history. The impactors in the inner Solar System during the past 3.8 Gy are also derived from the asteroid belt, but by a combination of chaotic gravitational resonances and non-gravitational processes; the latter process being size-dependent, yields a size distribution quite distinct from the purely gravitational process that caused the cataclysm 3.9 Gy ago and which reflects directly the main belt size distribution. Several important implications for the evolution of asteroids and for planetary geology, including the geological timescale for Mars, follow from these results. [Reference: Strom et al., Science 309:1847-1850 (2005).]
Ito Tetsuya
Kring David A.
Malhotra Renu
Strom Richard G.
Yoshida Fumi
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