Asteroid breakup 800 million years ago bombarded Earth, Moon and Mars
A Southwest Research Institute-led study links the breakup of the Eulalia parent asteroid to an impact shower that struck Earth, the Moon and Mars about 800 million years ago, according to research published in The Planetary Science Journal. Simulations show the asteroid shattere
A Southwest Research Institute-led team has connected a single asteroid collision in the main belt to a solar-system-wide bombardment about 800 million years ago. According to the study, the primitive Eulalia parent asteroid broke apart right beside the 3:1 mean-motion resonance with Jupiter, a gravitational escape hatch that delivers debris into planet-crossing orbits. Simulations found that half the fragments reached the resonance almost immediately, with another quarter drifting in over the following 100 to 150 million years via the Yarkovsky effect. Researchers estimate that for every large impact on the Moon, roughly twenty struck Earth, and the peak of the barrage coincides with a period of global cooling and major shifts in early life. Source: Southwest Research Institute, The Planetary Science Journal.