Peak of the Late Heavy Bombardment
c. 3.9 Billion years ago · Prehistoric
Between approximately 4.1 and 3.8 billion years ago, the inner solar system experienced an intense period of asteroid impacts. Radiometric dating of impact melt rocks collected during Apollo missions reveals a clustering of ages between 3.92 and 3.85 billion years, suggesting a bombardment peak around 3.9 billion years ago. The Nice model proposes that orbital migration of giant planets destabilized the asteroid belt, sending debris careening toward the inner planets and the Moon, scarring their surfaces with massive impact basins.
Locations
Inner Solar System
Topics
Late Heavy Bombardmentasteroid impactslunar cataclysmApollo samplesNice modelimpact melt
Connected Events — 3 Connections
Impacts delivered water and organic molecules to Earth while creating hydrothermal environments conducive to prebiotic chemistry Synthesis of First Prebiotic RNA and DNA Building Blocks
The bombardment peak produced the massive impacts that formed lunar basins including Orientale Formation of Lunar Orientale Basin During Late Heavy Bombardment
The solar system's formation set conditions for later orbital instability among giant planets, triggering the bombardment Formation of the Solar System
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