Earth got blasted by asteroids 800 million years ago

[Mike Wehner]

• An asteroid bombardment impacted both the Moon and Earth roughly 800 million years ago, new research suggests.
• By dating the craters on the Moon, researchers were able to estimate when the Earth-Moon system was nailed by an asteroid storm.
• The scientists believe the bombardment dramatically affected Earth and everything living here at the time.

When you look at the Moon you'll see plenty of craters of various sizes, telling the story of the many impacts Earth's tiny neighbor has endured. As researchers become more and more skilled at aging these features, they get a better idea of the kind of impacts that Earth itself has experienced over a similar timeline.

Now, researchers from Osaka University have completed their work on examining nearly 60 lunar craters using observations from the lunar orbiter Kaguya. What they discovered is that the Moon experienced a bombardment of asteroid impacts roughly 800 million years ago. That means that the Earth almost certainly experienced similar hardships around the same time.

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Earth got blasted by asteroids 800 million years ago originally appeared on BGR.com on Wed, 22 Jul 2020 at 19:11:31 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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