Dating the Moon-forming impact event with asteroidal meteorites

W. F. Bottke, D. Vokrouhlický, S. Marchi, T. Swindle, E. R.D. Scott, J. R. Weirich, H. Levison

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

78 Scopus citations

Abstract

The inner solar system's biggest and most recent known collision was the Moon-forming giant impact between a large protoplanet and proto-Earth. Not only did it create a disk near Earth that formed the Moon, it also ejected several percent of an Earth mass out of the Earth-Moon system. Here, we argue that numerous kilometer-sized ejecta fragments from that event struck main-belt asteroids at velocities exceeding 10 kilometers per second, enough to heat and degas target rock. Such impacts produce ∼1000 times more highly heated material by volume than do typical main belt collisions at ∼5 kilometers per second. By modeling their temporal evolution, and fitting the results to ancient impact heating signatures in stony meteorites, we infer that the Moon formed ∼4.47 billion years ago, which is in agreement with previous estimates.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)321-323
Number of pages3
JournalScience
Volume348
Issue number6232
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 17 2015

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General

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