Archean Earth (IMAGE)

Southwest Research Institute

Archean Earth

Caption

A Southwest Research Institute-led team updated planetary bombardment models with the latest geologic information and then applied those models to understand how impacts may have affected oxygen levels in the Earth’s atmosphere in the Archean eon, 2.5 to 4 billion years ago. This artistic conception illustrates large asteroids penetrating Earth’s oxygen-poor atmosphere.

Credit

SwRI/Dan Durda, Simone Marchi

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