Humongous meteors & asteroids hit earth & moon system 800 million years ago

Around 800 million years ago, an asteroid 100 KM wide broke up in space and hurtled into the Earth and moon. Scientists believe that the strike was thirty times more impactful than the asteroid that was responsible for killing the dinosaurs. Scientists can study the size and impact craters on different parts of the moon and estimate the ages of the scars. This technique is known as Crater Chronology. Researchers from the Osaka University in Japan are conducting further studies on this and have drawn a conclusion on these techniques.

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Studying moon craters gives an idea about meteors and asteroids that would have hit Earth millions of years ago

Image Credits: NASA Goddard Youtube

Researchers found that while the evidence of the strikes on the Earth has changed over the years, on the moon, there is almost no erosion. This allowed the scientists to reconstruct the history of 60 large craters.

Image Credits: NASA Goddard Youtube

A media portal reported that the moon’s face is marred by thousands of craters. These are assumed to have created by whizzing space rocks that pelted the early solar system. Researchers believe that observations of lunar craters could reveal a lot about ancient impacts on Earth.

It is so because the craters on the moon do not erode as they do on Earth. Earth has seen older craters than 600 million years ago being weathered into nothingness. This happens due to volcanic activity, erosion, and other geological factors.

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Ice Age of the Earth was probably caused by asteroids that hit the Earth millions of years ago

Image credits: Pixabay

Researchers have found an interesting perspective on a dramatic climate shift in Earth. The earth went through a glacial period which is also known as ‘snowball Earth’. During that period, the planet had undergone a global deep freeze in which the entire surface of the earth was covered in ice.

Explaining further, researchers told a media portal that the Earth was covered from pole to pole with ice. Earlier scientists had suspected that volcanoes or other factors of the Earth had led to the big chill. However, new studies on lunar evidence indicate that asteroids and meteors hitting the Earth might have been the cause of ice age.

It has been reported by a media portal that new lunar evidence shows that the trigger may have originated in space. The ‘snowball Earth’ may have been a result of an asteroid bombardment.

Scientists from the Osaka university told a media portal that Lunar crater chronology provides new insight into external forcing from asteroids. It has been further reported that asteroids might have driven global environmental change.

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Image credits: Pixabay