Ancient Crashes Blasted Precious Metals Into Earth, Moon and Mars

By Mike Wall
published

Artist's conception of the massive collision between Earth and a Mars-size object that likely created the moon about 4.5 billion years ago. (Image credit: AOES Medialab, ESA)

Gigantic collisions

In the last days of

These traumatic

"We can use

The mystery of

Gold, platinum,

But siderophiles are

"The abundance

One possibility is

Bottke and his

Modeling planet

To account for

Using numerical

"The

The results show

These big

This bombardment

Bottke and his

Other evidence

The results from the

For example, other

"The

A 1,000-mile-wide

Taken together, the

"We have a

Is this violence

The study paints a

"Because we can

If our solar system

In any event, Bottke

"If you can

  • Top

You can follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter: @michaeldwall.

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community@space.com.

Mike Wall
Mike Wall
Senior Space Writer

Michael Wall is a Senior Space Writer with Space.com and joined the team in 2010. He primarily covers exoplanets, spaceflight and military space, but has been known to dabble in the space art beat. His book about the search for alien life, "Out There," was published on Nov. 13, 2018. Before becoming a science writer, Michael worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Michael on Twitter.