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Number of Near-Earth Objects and Formation of Lunar Craters over the Last Billion Years

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Abstract

We compare the number of lunar craters larger than 15 km across and younger than 1.1 Ga to the estimates of the number of craters that could have been formed for 1.1 Ga if the number of near-Earth objects and their orbital elements during that time were close to the corresponding current values. The comparison was performed for craters over the entire lunar surface and in the region of the Oceanus Procellarum and maria on the near side of the Moon. In these estimates, we used the values of collision probabilities of near-Earth objects with the Moon and the dependences of the crater diameters on the impactor sizes. According to the estimates made by different authors, the number density of known Copernican craters with diameters D ≥ 15 km in mare regions is at least double the corresponding number for the remaining lunar surface. Our estimates do not contradict the growth in the number of near-Earth objects after probable catastrophic fragmentations of large main-belt asteroids, which may have occurred over the recent 300 Ma; however, they do not prove this increase. Particularly, they do not conflict with the inference made by Mazrouei et al. (2019) that 290 Ma ago the frequency of collisions of near-Earth asteroids with the Moon increased by 2.6 times. The number of Copernican lunar craters with diameters not smaller than 15 km is probably higher than that reported by Mazrouei et al. (2019). For a probability of a collision of an Earth-crossing object (ECO) with the Earth in a year equaled to 10–8 , our estimates of the number of craters agree with the model, according to which the number densities of the 15-km Copernican craters for the whole lunar surface would have been the same as that for mare regions if the data by Losiak et al. (2015) for D < 30 km were as complete as those for D > 30 km. With this collision probability of ECOs with the Earth and for this model, the cratering rate may have been constant over the recent 1.1 Ga.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors are grateful to reviewers for numerous valuable comments that contributed much to improving the paper.

Funding

The study was performed under government contracts of the Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Sternberg Astronomical Institute of Moscow State University, and the Institute of Geosphere Dynamics of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The studies of the probabilities of asteroid collisions with the Earth were supported by a grant on exoplanets from the Ministry of Education and Science.

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  1. Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry, Russian Academy of Sciences, 119991, Moscow, Russia

    S. I. Ipatov

  2. Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Moscow State University, 119992, Moscow, Russia

    E. A. Feoktistova

  3. Institute of Geosphere Dynamics, Russian Academy of Sciences, 119334, Moscow, Russia

    V. V. Svettsov

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  1. S. I. Ipatov
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  2. E. A. Feoktistova
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  3. V. V. Svettsov
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Correspondence to S. I. Ipatov.

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Translated by E. Petrova

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Ipatov, S.I., Feoktistova, E.A. & Svettsov, V.V. Number of Near-Earth Objects and Formation of Lunar Craters over the Last Billion Years. Sol Syst Res 54, 384–404 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1134/S0038094620050019

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