Onset of giant planet migration before 4480 million years ago

Understand

Immediately after their formation, the terrestrial planets experienced intense impact bombardment by comets, leftover planetesimals from primary accretion, and asteroids.

• This temporal interval in solar system evolution, termed late accretion, thermally and chemically modified solid planetary surfaces and may have impeded the emergence of life on the Hadean Earth.
• The sources and tempo of late accretion are, however, vague.
• Here, we present a timeline that relates variably retentive radiometric ages from asteroidal meteorites, to new dynamical models of late accretion that invokes giant planet migration.