AirSpace Season 10, Episode 4: Crater Dating

The oldest Earth rocks we have are 4.3 billion years old, and samples we've brought back from the Moon are even older. But what does that have to do with craters on Mars? When the Apollo missions brought back samples, those rocks let us confirm the age of parts of our lunar bestie for the first time. Now, scientific models use data from those samples to extrapolate the age of other geologic events in our Solar System. 


In This Episode:

  • How Apollo retrieved lunar samples greatly expanded planetary geology
  • How radiometric dating and crater counting help build geologic timelines
  • Why new Moon samples, asteroid samples, and soon Mars samples help scientists better estimate geologic timings in the solar system
  • Rocks are cool

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Thanks to our guest in this episode:

  • Dr. Beau Bierhaus, Senior Research Scientist - Lockheed Martin*

AirSpace is made possible by the generous support of Lockheed Martin.

 

*AirSpace is editorially independent from its sponsors.