The origin of planetary impactors in the inner solar system

Abstract

New insights into the history of the inner solar system are derived from the impact cratering record of the Moon, Mars, Venus and Mercury, and from the size distributions of asteroid populations. Old craters from a unique period of heavy bombardment that ended $\sim$3.8 billion years ago were made by asteroids that were dynamically ejected from the main asteroid belt, possibly due to the orbital migration of the giant planets. The impactors of the past $\sim$3.8 billion years have a size distribution quite different from the main belt asteroids, but very similar to the population of near-Earth asteroids.

12 pages (including 4 figures)

References in corpus (4)

• THE ORIGIN OF PLUTO'S ORBIT: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE SOLAR SYSTEM BEYOND NEPTUNE
• Solar System Objects Observed in the SDSS Commissioning Data
• Orbital Evolution of Planets Embedded in a Planetesimal Disk
• The Orbital and Absolute Magnitude Distributions of Main Belt Asteroids

Cited by in corpus (100)

• Lunar impact craters identification and age estimation with Chang'E data by deep and transfer learning
• Asteroids Were Born Big
• Building the Terrestrial Planets: Constrained Accretion in the Inner Solar System
• Debris Disk Evolution Around A Stars
• Spitzer IRS Spectroscopy of IRAS-Discovered Debris Disks
• A Sawtooth-like Timeline for the First Billion Year of Lunar Bombardment
• The timeline of the Lunar bombardment - revisited
• Highly Siderophile Elements in the Earth's Mantle as a Clock for the Moon-forming Impact
• Lunar Crater Identification via Deep Learning
• Probing for Exoplanets Hiding in Dusty Debris Disks: Disk Imaging, Characterization, and Exploration with HST/STIS Multi-Roll Coronagraphy
• Evidence from the asteroid belt for a violent past evolution of Jupiter's orbit
• Origin of the RNA World: The Fate of Nucleobases in Warm Little Ponds
• New Debris Disks Around Young, Low Mass Stars Discovered With The Spitzer Space Telescope
• A new chronology for the Moon and Mercury
• Asteroid Belts in Debris Disk Twins: VEGA and FOMALHAUT
• A record of planet migration in the Main Asteroid Belt
• Dynamical erosion of the asteroid belt and implications for large impacts in the inner solar system
• Debris disks as signposts of terrestrial planet formation
• From planetesimals to terrestrial planets: N-body simulations including the effects of nebular gas and giant planets
• Planet-planet scattering in planetesimal disks II: Predictions for outer extrasolar planetary systems
• Constructing the secular architecture of the solar system II: The terrestrial planets
• Cataclysm no more: New views on the timing and delivery of lunar impactors
• Did Saturn's rings form during the Late Heavy Bombardment ?
• Low paleopressure of the Martian atmosphere estimated from the size distribution of ancient craters
• Constraining the cometary flux through the asteroid belt during the late heavy bombardment
• The History of the Solar System's Debris Disc: Observable Properties of the Kuiper Belt
• On the Migration of Jupiter and Saturn: Constraints from Linear Models of Secular Resonant Coupling with the Terrestrial Planets
• Will the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope detect extra-solar planetesimals entering the solar system?
• Metal-rich accretion and thermohaline instabilities in exoplanets-host stars: consequences on the light elements abundances
• Onset of giant planet migration before 4480 million years ago
• Terrestrial Planet Formation Constrained by Mars and the Structure of the Asteroid Belt
• Formation and Evolution of Planetary Systems: Placing Our Solar System in Context with Spitzer
• Secular resonance sweeping of the main asteroid belt during planet migration
• Spitzer 24 Micron Observations of Open Cluster IC 2391 and Debris Disk Evolution of FGK Stars
• Spin-orbit evolution of Mercury revisited
• Chaotic exchange of solid material between planetary systems: implications for lithopanspermia
• Are Debris Disks and Massive Planets Correlated?
• IRS Spectra of Solar-Type Stars: \break A Search for Asteroid Belt Analogs
• The Effect of an Early Planetesimal-Driven Migration of the Giant Planets on Terrestrial Planet Formation
• Spitzer 24 micron Survey of Debris Disks in the Pleiades
• Impact bombardment chronology of the terrestrial planets from 4.5 Ga to 3.5 Ga
• Re-examining the main asteroid belt as the primary source of ancient lunar craters
• The inner solar system cratering record and the evolution of impactor populations
• Small crater populations on Vesta
• The low level of debris disk activity at the time of the Late Heavy Bombardment: a Spitzer study of Praesepe
• Constraining the Cratering Chronology of Vesta
• Coagulation Calculations of Icy Planet Formation at 15--150 AU: A Correlation Between the Maximum Radius and the Slope of the Size Distribution for Transneptunian Objects
• Are the Moon's nearside-farside asymmetries the result of a giant impact?
• Terrestrial Planet Formation During the Migration and Resonance Crossings of the Giant Planets
• The Absence of Cold Dust and the Mineralogy and Origin of the Warm Dust Encircling BD +20 307
• Asymmetric impacts of near-Earth asteroids on the Moon
• New HST data and modeling reveal a massive planetesimal collision around Fomalhaut
• Apsidal Behavior Among Planetary Orbits: Testing the Planet-Planet Scattering Model
• First Fruits of the Spitzer Space Telescope: Galactic and Solar System Studies
• Late Accretion and the Late Veneer
• Earth-like Habitats in Planetary Systems
• Early Bombardment of the Moon: Connecting the Lunar Crater Record to the Terrestrial Planet Formation
• Small Jupiter Trojans Survey with Subaru/Hyper Suprime-Cam
• Dynamical transport of asteroid fragments from the nu6 resonance
• Meteoritical and dynamical constraints on the growth mechanisms and formation times of asteroids and Jupiter
• A colossal impact enriched Mars' mantle with noble metals
• An Early Look of Comet C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring): Breathtaker or Nightmare?
• Chronology and Sources of Lunar Impact Bombardment
• Mercury's geochronology revised by applying Model Production Functions to Mariner 10 data: geological implications
• Evolution of the Earth's Atmosphere during Late Veneer Accretion
• Origin and Dynamical Evolution of Comets and their Reservoirs
• On the Binary Nature of Dust-encircled BD+20 307
• Detectability of Planetesimal Impacts on Giant Exoplanets
• Earth and Terrestrial Planet Formation
• Dynamics of escaping Earth ejecta and their collision probability with different Solar System bodies
• A new martian crater chronology: Implications for Jezero crater
• Asteroid impacts on terrestrial planets: The effects of super-Earths and the role of the ${\nu }_6$ resonance
• A Search for Vulcanoids with the STEREO Heliospheric Imager
• Stability analysis of the Martian obliquity during the Noachian era
• Dusty Planetary Systems
• Formation of Lunar Basins from Impacts of Leftover Planetesimals
• Ceres and the Terrestrial Planets Impact Cratering Record
• The Kuiper Belt and Other Debris Disks
• Excavation and Melting of the Hadean Continental Crust by Late Heavy Bombardment
• A general method for assessing the origin of interstellar small bodies: the case of 1I/2017 U1 ('Oumuamua)
• How much water was delivered from the asteroid belt to the Earth after its formation?
• The Influence of Space Environment on the Evolution of Mercury
• Dynamical Origin and Terrestrial Impact Flux of Large Near-Earth Asteroids
• Analytical formulation of lunar cratering asymmetries
• Constraints on the Source of Lunar Cataclysm Impactors
• Physical effects of collisions in the Kuiper belt
• Thermal effects of late accretion to the crust and mantle of Mercury
• Astrophysics in 2005
• "Isocrater" impacts: Conditions and mantle dynamical responses for different impactor types
• Extra-Solar Kuiper Belt Dust Disks
• A thermophysical and dynamical study of the Hildas (1162) Larissa and (1911) Schubart
• Determining proportions of lunar crater populations by fitting crater size distribution
• An estimate of resident time of the Oort Cloud new comets in planetary region
• The plausibility of origins scenarios requiring two impactors
• Effects of capturing a wide-orbit planet on planetary systems: system stability and Habitable Zone bombardment rates
• Three new late-type stellar companions to very dusty WISE debris disks identified with VLT/SPHERE imaging
• Orbital Dynamics of the Solar Basin
• On the Solar System-Debris Disk Connecction
• Re-recognized universality of Kozai oscillation on three-body dynamics
• Deep Mantle-Atmosphere Coupling and Carbonaceous Bombardment: Options for Biomolecule Formation on an Oxidized Early Earth