Why does the moon have more impact craters than the earth does?

Answer 1

The Moon has no air, which means more impacting bodies actually reach the surface. Meteors entering Earth's atmosphere usually burn up before they can hit the ground. Erosion, tectonics, and glaciers eventually erase the craters left from the ones that do hit the ground.

Answer 2

The answer is: weather, water, volcanos and plate tectonics.

The earth has almost certainly been hit more often than the moon. But major collisions (in both places) stopped around 3 billion years ago (because the solar system started running out of big rocks).

Since that time, activity on the earth's surface has made the earth's craters disappear. Weather erodes the craters; the craters in the ocean have been eroded by water and filled with sediment; and continental drift has dragged many of them deep into the earth's crust. Volcanos erupt and cover the craters with lava.

None of this has been going on on the moon during this same time period; so the old craters left over from the early bombardment, just stick around.

Answer 3

The Earth has many more impact craters than the Moon because of its larger surface area. But the Moon has no erosional forces to erase them, while the Earth does. There are many highly eroded meteor craters all over the Earth, but they require careful geological investigation to prove what they are. Many more craters on Earth have been completely eradicated. There are 57 craters currently known in North America alone, and over 170 spread over the entire Earth.

Answer 4

The major asteroid bombardments occurred in the first billion years of the solar system. As time went on, most of the large objects in dangerous orbits either collided with something, were ejected from the solar system, or achieved stable orbits. In the meantime, Earth's continents have moved around, mountain ranges have come and gone, and most of those early craters have been obliterated. Even the impact associated with the death of the dinosaurs, a "mere" 65 million years ago, is now an inconspicuous scar on the sea bed.

So the short answer is that geological activity and weathering have obscured or obliterated most of Earth's craters. Neither of these processes occur on the moon, so its impact history is still largely visible.

Answer 5

Earth erases it's craters, by weather & techtonic activity. The craters on the moon, without wind, rain, or quakes to smooth them out & gradually erase them, remain for a very, very long time.

The Earth, being a bigger target & possessing more gravitational pull, likely has had 3 or 4 times *more* impacts than the moon has.

Answer 6

The Moon's craters have survived longer because the Moon has very little erosion. Its only real erosion comes from subsequent meteorite impact which these days is mostly very tiny meteorites.

Have you seen Meteor Crater in Arizona? It is a well-preserved crater on Earth because it is in a dry place.

Answer 7

The moon gets more craters because it doesn't have an atmosphere to burn up asteroids before they can cause a crater.

Then it keeps more of the craters it gets because it doesn't have as much erosion as the earth has, from air and water.

Answer 8

on earth there is an atmosphere where any incoming meteors burn up due to air resistance but the moon has no atmosphere so there for more meteors hit the surface and make craters there is also no weather to erode craters as they might on earth

Answer 9

1. the atmosphere of the earth burns up many meteorites.
2. the earth is much more seismically and atmospherically active. oceans, earthquakes, floods, wind and volcanoes all cover up impact craters.

Answer 10

Earth has many also, but the moon is so barren that they show up easier on the moon.