New findings from researchers at @NASA and other international teams has discovered a link between the bombardment history of our moon and that of the asteroid Vesta. It appears that the same set of projectiles that hit our moon – and presumably other objects in the inner Solar System – 4 billion years ago also impacted Vesta.
Vesta is an asteroid in our Solar System’s main asteroid belt, between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars. Researchers studying this asteroid have compared moon rocks brought back from the Apollo missions to the findings on Vesta and determined that the same set of projectiles were responsible for both sets of bombardments. And they point to a 4-billion year old disruption of the Solar System:
The findings support the theory that the repositioning of gas giant planets like Jupiter and Saturn from their original orbits to their current location destabilized portions of the asteroid belt and triggered a solar system-wide bombardment of asteroids billions of years ago, called the lunar cataclysm.
The research provides new constraints on the start and duration of the lunar cataclysm, and demonstrates that the cataclysm was an event that affected not only the inner solar system planets, but the asteroid belt as well.
