Asteroids Battered Young Earth Longer Than Thought

    This article, by Charles Q. Choi told about how scientists have been wrong about how long the Late Heavy Bombardment period lasted. The scientists wanted to investigate cosmic impacts and their craters, but unlike the preserved craters on the Moon, the craters on Earth disappear rapidly because of the motion of the tectonic plates as well as erosion. In order to analyze more about this period, researchers have analyzed spherules; centimeter to millimeter thick rock droplets. From these, the researchers can learn about the impact with out knowing where the source crater is. From these spherules, the velocity and size of the asteroid can be inferred. because of this, they could infer the population of asteroids hitting Earth. This information can help us to learn more about the history of our solar system because at least twelve spherule beds have been deposited between 1.7 to 3.47 billion years ago, showing that impacts occurred long after the Late Heavy Bombardment. Lead by William Bottke and his colleges, researchers have found that the E Belt Region within the Asteroid Belt most likely wasn't stable and had enough matter to batter the Earth. This article provided a lot of new found information about our solar system that could maybe leave hints for new discoveries.

http://www.space.com/15424-asteroids-battered-earth-collisions.html