Overview
- A peer-reviewed paper published on May 12, 2026, by Crow et al. in Geology reports that the northwest Africa lunar meteorite NWA 12593 records three separate impact events.
- The oldest event—dated to about 3.5 billion years ago—produced a large melt sheet and left traces of cubic zirconia, a mineral form that signals very high impact temperatures.
- A later collision broke and fused that melt into breccia, and a still-more-recent impact launched the breccia off the Moon so it later fell to Earth as NWA 12593.
- The meteorite’s oldest age matches known impact ages on Earth and on asteroid 4 Vesta, providing uncommon, corroborating evidence of elevated inner‑solar‑system bombardment between roughly 3.7 and 3.2 billion years ago.
- Because Earth’s ancient crust is mostly recycled, the Moon’s preserved record helps fill gaps in our view of the Archean era and gives scientists a clearer basis to study how impacts may have affected early habitability and the rise of life.