New Findings on Early Bombardment of the Earth and Moon and Their Development

Freie Universität Researchers Contribute to International Study Published in Nature. No 215/2019 from Jul 12, 2019 How did the Earth evolve from a fireball about 4.5 billion years ago to a habitable world? The key to this question lies in the early history of our planet, when the bombardment with cosmic bodies slowly declined. An international team, including scientists from the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin and Freie Universität Berlin, has now succeeded in quantitatively reconstructing the bombardment history of the Earth and Moon. The results of The entry of mass by this bombardment was most likely crucial for the later evolution of the Earth and the formation of an atmosphere and oceans. The Earth and the Earth-like planets in the inner solar system were formed by collisions of protoplanets. The last giant collision of Earth with a Mars-sized body resulted in the formation of the Moon. How the Earth developed from a fireball covered by a magma ocean thousands of kilometers thick, to a habitable planet with liquid water on the surface and an atmosphere and biosphere remains enigmatic.