Craters In the Moon?

Question

The moon has many craters because it has been hit many times by asteroids or some ther unknowned objects, why is it that the eart being more bigger does not have a history of craters? It should look similar to the moon, I would beleive.

Answer 1

Earth has an atmosphere. Over time wind and water change the landscape of our planet.
We also owe some of it to Jupiter.
The gravitational pull of Jupiter steers asteroids towards Jupiter and away from the Earth.

Crap. I hope I didn't just help you cheat on some homework.

Answer 2

Sorry to contradict a science teacher (and others), but the atmosphere has essentially nothing to do with it (except as an agent for eroding craters _after_ the collisions!)

The entire inner solar system--including both the earth and the moon--underwent intense bombardment by meteoroids during the the solar system's early history (do a search for "early cratering of the planets"). During that period, house-size meteors and mile-wide craters were a daily occurrence on both the earth and moon. The earth's atmosphere is not much of a defense against rocks that size. Essentially all of the craters you see on the moon today were formed during that early period. And the earth's surface was equally pock-marked.

The difference is that, after the early cratering stopped, geological and weathering processes caused the craters on the earth eventually to erode. Plate tectonics (continental drift) has completely "refreshed" the surface that we had a billion years ago; and nearly all remnants of newer craters have been wiped out by wind, water and lava.

On the moon, none of those erosive processes happened, and so we still see the fossils of the early cratering period.

Answer 3

That's because the Moon doesn't have an atmosphere, oceans, or weather. The craters disappear on Earth from erosion over time. Also since the majority of Our planet's surface is covers by water, it stands to reason a lot of impacts were in the oceans. thus the impact crater is submerged out of sight.

Answer 4

First answer is right. The weather and water on earth erode craters. There is no rain or wind or waves to smooth out the craters on the moon. As others have pointed out, there are some examples of meteor craters on earth. Some are difficult to see due to trees, some are buried under soil, some under ice, some under water.

I hope this helps.

Answer 5

The moon, has no water, no atmosphere, no volcanoes, and no tectonic plates.

Therefore, craters on the moon can *never* be eroded or covered up, except by more craters.

Most of the visible craters on the moon are *extremely old*, on the order of billions of years.

Compare the moon's surface to that of Jupiter's moon Io:
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/9703/io970321_gal_big.jpg
Io is the most volcanically active body in the solar system. All the visible "pockmarks" are volcanoes. Io has no visible impact craters at all; they've been covered up by lava flows.

Answer 6

there are crater impacts on the earth. but think of the placement of the moon as the defense shield against such foreign bodies.

to get to the earth, the object is attracted by the gravity of the moon as well as the earth. the two together tend to change the orbit of the object.

instead of the many head-in collisions with the earth, the objects tend to move around the earth and moon and since the moon is further out than the earth, it tended to get hit more often.

with the expansion of the universe and the continual movement of objects, the earth is at an ever decreasing chance of being hit if only because the distances traveled and the amount of debris that has hit other stellar bodies, i.e. planets, suns, etc.

Answer 7

The earth has an atmosphere, and therefore wind, precipitation, etc. The craters get eroded away by these natural processes. The moon doesn't have these things, so the craters stay.

Answer 8

Perhaps the atmosphere of the Earth causes most objects falling through it to burn up before they even hit the ground, unless it was the meteor that made Meteor Crater in SW USA.

Answer 9

The Earth has a thicker atmosphere. Objects usually burn up upon entry of the atmosphere. The moon does not have a thick atmos....therefore, they get more "hits."

The Earth does have a lot of large historic craters on record. You could probably get pics on the internet.

Answer 10

It has. It is estimated that Earth has been hit more than 300 times by asteroids or comets, but erosion, grass, jungle, water, cover most of them.