Skip Navigation

Resources

A Shared Bombardment History

A Shared Bombardment History
Photojournal: PIA16841
Source: NASA/GSFC/ASU/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA
Published: March 25, 2013

Studying meteorites from the asteroid Vesta helps scientists understand the event known as the 'lunar cataclysm,' when a repositioning of the gas giant planets destabilized a portion of the asteroid belt and triggered a solar-system-wide bombardment.

ENLARGE

Related

The presence of the tiny ring moon Daphnis is betrayed by the edge waves it creates in the Keeler gap. The gap is a narrow lane, about 42 kilometers (26 miles) wide, in Saturn's outer A ring. Daph...
More
Edge waves in Saturn's rings
Moon's Signature
These images from NASA's Dawn spacecraft show part of the rim of asteroid Vesta's south polar basin, which is dominated by a large scarp (cliff) that runs vertically across the center of the images.
More
Topography of a Scarp and Hummocky Terrain
Topography of a Scarp and Hummocky Terrain
+ View High Res Team members of NASA's Cassini mission to Saturn gather in October 2010 at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., where the mission is managed. Over 200 scientists, eng...
More
Cassini team members
Cassini Team (October 2010)
See Dione Global Maps Presented here is a complete set of cartographic map sheets from a high-resolution Dione atlas, a project of the Cassini Imaging Team. The map sheets form a 15-quadrangle ser...
More
Presented here is a complete set of cartographic map sheets from a high-resolution Dione atlas
The Dione Atlas
The NASA InSight spacecraft launches onboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas-V rocket, Saturday, May 5, 2018, from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
More
Smoke and flame from rocket launch.
InSight Off the Pad
This image from NASA's Dawn spacecraft shows a portion of Ikapati Crater on Ceres. Dawn took this image on June 10, 2016, from its low-altitude mapping orbit, at a distance of about 240 miles (385 ...
More
Dawn LAMO Image 198
Dawn LAMO Image 198
The small ring moon Atlas is seen here, on the far side of Saturn's immense ring system. Cassini was only 0.6 degrees above the ring plane when this image was taken. Atlas is 32 kilometers (20 ...
More
The small ring moon Atlas, on the far side of Saturn's immense ring system
Straight Across the Rings
Giant vortices swirl in the dim northern latitudes of Saturn. The high northern latitudes are slowly coming to light as Saturn heads into northern hemisphere spring. The view is centered on a reg...
More
Giant vortices swirl in the dim northern latitudes of Saturn.
Northern Storms
A pair of small moons that NASA's Hubble Space Telescope discovered orbiting Pluto now have official names: Nix and Hydra.
More
A pair of small moons that NASA's Hubble Space Telescope discovered orbiting Pluto now have official names: Nix and Hydra.
Pluto and Its Moons: Charon, Nix, and Hydra
This radar image of Titan shows a semi-circular feature that may be part of an impact crater. Very few impact craters have been seen on Titan so far, implying that the surface is young. Each new cr...
More
Close-up of Titan
A New Crater on Titan?
This set of images show the areas mapped so far on Saturn's moon Titan by the Cassini Radar Mapper using its Synthetic Aperture Radar imaging mode and the location of the upcoming Oct. 28, 2005, Ti...
More
a map of Titan and current radar data collection
Titan Viewed by Cassini's Radar
The F ring's shepherds, Prometheus and Pandora, join Epimetheus in this image of three of Saturn's moons and the rings. Prometheus (86 kilometers, or 53 miles across) can be seen orbiting inside t...
More
Saturn's rings, Prometheus, Pandora and Epimetheus
Trio of Small Moons
The Cassini spacecraft provides this dramatic portrait of Janus against the cloud-streaked backdrop of Saturn. Like many small bodies in the solar system, Janus (181 kilometers, or 113 miles acros...
More
Saturn's moon Janus
Superb Janus
This image from the framing camera aboard NASA's Dawn spacecraft shows surface details beginning to resolve as the spacecraft closes in on the giant asteroid Vesta on June 1, 2011, from a distance ...
More
Vesta's Surface Comes into View
Vesta's Surface Comes into View
Rhea's distinctive bright and relatively fresh-rayed crater lies in stark contrast to the large, round basin which sits along the terminator (the boundary between day and night) in this unmagnified...
More
the moon Rhea
Crater Contrast
A large dark region fills a semicircle of the visible disk of Iapetus on the left of this Cassini spacecraft image, appearing like a bite taken out of this Saturnian moon. See Global View of Iapet...
More
A large dark region fills a semicircle of the visible disk of Iapetus on the left of this Cassini spacecraft image.
Bite Out of Iapetus
With kaleidoscopic forms and hues, these two false-color views from NASA's Cassini spacecraft show the patterns that come and go in the course of one Saturn day within the huge storm in the planet'...
More
Patterns that come and go in the course of one Saturn day within the huge storm in the planet's northern hemisphere.
Kaleidoscopic Rainbows
This global digital map of Saturn's moon Titan was created using images taken by the Cassini spacecraft's imaging science subsystem (ISS).
More
Titan global map
Titan Global Map - June 2015
Lockheed Martin Space Systems technicians Jim Young (left) and Jack Farmerie (right) work on the science deck of NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander.
More
Lockheed Martin Space Systems technicians Jim Young (left) and Jack Farmerie (right) work on the science deck of NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander.
Work on Phoenix Science Deck
This image from NASA's Dawn spacecraft shows the edge of Ikapati crater on Ceres, at upper right. Dawn took this image on June 12, 2016, from its low-altitude mapping orbit, at a distance of about ...
More
Dawn LAMO Image 204
Dawn LAMO Image 204
The Cassini spacecraft stares at the Huygens Gap -- the region between Saturn's outer B ring and the ringlets of the prominent Cassini Division -- in this high-resolution view. Ring scientists thi...
More
The Huygens Gap in Saturn's rings
Structure Along the Edge
A pair of Saturn's many moons joins the planet in this Cassini spacecraft scene. Tethys (660 miles, or 1,062 kilometers across) appears as a small white dot above the rings on the far left of the ...
More
Saturn, Tethys and Enceladus
Moon Specks
This low elevation image shows the G ring arc recently discovered by Cassini. This faint arc of material is maintained by a gravitational interaction with the moon Mimas. The image was taken in vi...
More
The G ring arc
Lost Arc
This close-up view of the core of Saturn's narrow outlying F ring provides an unprecedented look at the fine scale structure of this highly perturbed ring. Like F Ring Dynamism, the structure seen...
More
A close-up view of the core of Saturn's F ring
Shearing Core
This image of Jupiter's iconic Great Red Spot (GRS) was created by citizen scientist Björn Jónsson using data from the JunoCam imager on NASA's Juno spacecraft.
More
This image of Jupiter's iconic Great Red Spot (GRS) was created by citizen scientist Björn Jónsson using data from the JunoCam imager on NASA's Juno spacecraft.
Jupiter's Great Red Spot in True Color

You Might Also Like