Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.
Science Signaling

Site Tools

  • AAAS
  • Subscribe
  • Feedback

Site Search

Search Advanced

Science 1 December 2000:
Vol. 290. no. 5497, p. 1677
DOI: 10.1126/science.290.5497.1677
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

News Focus

PLANETARY SCIENCE:
Beating Up on a Young Earth, and Possibly Life

Richard A. Kerr

Lunar meteorite analyses reported on page 1754 of this issue reveal a burst of impacts on the moon 3.9 billion years ago and nothing before that; the cosmochemists conclude that the moon and Earth endured a storm of impacts 100 times heavier than anything immediately before or after. Such a lunar cataclysm would have scarred the moon with the great basins that now shape the man in the moon. On Earth, the same bombardment would have intervened in the evolution of life, perhaps forcing it to start all over again.

Read the Full Text


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
The enigma of the origin of life and its timing.
M. A. Line (2002)
Microbiology 148, 21-27
   Full Text »    PDF »


ADVERTISEMENT
Click Me!

ADVERTISEMENT
Click Me!

To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)