Late Great Bombardment: Earth experienced a gigantic asteroid strike that left 22,000 craters

Even though Jupiter is a fairly important part of the Solar System today, it originally formed much further away from the Sun. It would probably still be there today, if it had not encountered a large number of planetesimals, i.e. icy bodies with an area of ​​several kilometers, which began to act on it with their own gravitational pulls and gradually moved it into the system.

The late great bombing

As Jupiter advanced, it collided with Saturn, and together the two planets began to influence the paths of the other gas planets so that their orbits moved away from the Sun. At the same time, this time it was their gravitational pull that, on the contrary, affected the planetesimals from the asteroid cloud. As the bodies were driven into the inner system by the influence of the two giants, the gravity of the other planets took its toll and the inferno we know as the Late Great Bombardment began. You can see its dramatization in the program Vesmírná zaře on Prima ZOOM.

Also read: 5 movies in which an asteroid flies towards Earth: From Armageddon to Crushing Impact

The inner planets, including Earth, began to be bombarded by a cloud of large asteroids. If there was any life or oceans on Earth before that time, it all disappeared under the onslaught of cosmic rocks, which caused extreme heat on Earth. It melted a large part of the earth’s crust. That is also why today it is difficult to find any rock older than 4 billion years. The bombardment left over 22,000 craters over 20 km in size and 40 gigantic impact basins around 1,000 km in diameter on Earth.

Sources: Space / Earth How