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A new lunar crater dating has shown that since the beginning of the Permian, the meteors have bombarded Earth and its much more intense satellite.
In recent times, the frequency of Earth collisions with asteroids has not decreased, but increased. Nowadays, such events occur 2.5 times more often than it is 290 million years ago – perhaps it is due to the destabilization of the asteroid belt. Sara Mazrouei and her colleagues at the University of Toronto write about this in an article published in the journal Science
The geological activity of the Earth erases relatively quickly the visible traces of collisions with comets and asteroids. However, the surface of the Moon can store old scars for tens and millions of years, and with it – and the "chronicle" of our common past. In recent years, tools and methods have allowed this work to be done at a more detailed level.
Sarah Mazrui and her co-authors used the DLRE infrared radiometer installed on the American LRO probe, which had been operating in a lunar orbit for nearly 10 years. This allowed for the most accurate measurement of soil temperature near the surface of 111 craters over 10 km in diameter. This material can heat strongly and very strongly under the influence of impact and, in the absence of the atmosphere, cools more slowly than on Earth. The tiny differences in temperature have allowed the craters to age up to billions of years.
Large lunar craters studied by LRO / © Alex Parker, Southwest Research Institute
This book shows that since 290 million years ago – at The authors predict that the increase in Asteroid numbers could be due to the destabilization of the body's motion trajectories in the main asteroid belt, located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The impact of this far-off event on our lives can be extremely important: it's finally the meteorite hit of 66 million years ago that marked a turning point in the long time of the reign of the dinosaurs.
Source: Naked Science
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