Bombardment of Planets in the Early Solar System

Visualisation of convective motions that took place in the interior of Vesta in its early evolution phase. In the outer hull, the material is rigid and immobile due to a low temperature. The dimensionless temperature increases with depth. The interior visualises ascending currents of warmer and less dense material and descending currents of colder and denser materials. Dr Wladimir Neumann (Heidelberg) - Studies of the asteroid Vesta provide new findings on the formation of Earth-like planets - The largest asteroid in our Solar System - Vesta - was exposed to an extensive series of impacts by large rocky bodies much earlier than previously assumed. Researchers of an international collaboration, including earth scientists of Heidelberg University and Freie Universität Berlin, reached this conclusion based on analyses of Vesta meteorites, numerical simulations, and observations carried out with the space probe Dawn in 2011 and 2012. This novel finding opens up an entirely new picture of the chronology of the collision history in the early Solar System.