It is not clear to what extent the planets were exposed to a common population during this late bombardment.
All of the large basins on Mars are extremely old, dating back to the late heavy bombardment.
That period is the late heavy bombardment, a 200-million-year span that ended about 3.8 billion years ago.
Outline the evidence that some sort of late heavy bombardment occurred on all terrestrial planets.
The similar age of the oldest surviving rocks and the "late heavy bombardment" is thought to be not accidental.
There was a time between 3.8 and 4.1 billion years ago, that is known as Late Heavy Bombardment today.
They evolved on early Earth, in the interval of stability between the early and late bombardments.
This hypothesis is referred to as the lunar cataclysm or late heavy bombardment.
The late heavy bombardment, whether it was the end of accretion or a separate event, is even less likely to cause widespread melting.
This period is known as the Late Heavy Bombardment and occurred 3.9 billion years ago.