\n<\/p>\n
According to Denevi, Artemis has good odds of settling a more controversial part of the Moon\u2019s history, too.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The idea is that around half a billion years after Earth formed, a surge of thousands of asteroids and comets hit both our world and the Moon. This barrage, called the Late Heavy Bombardment or Lunar Cataclysm, would have included asteroids far larger than the one that wiped out the dinosaurs. Such extreme conditions could have dramatically shaped how life first evolved on Earth.<\/p>\n
Fittingly, scientists originally developed this concept because of evidence from\u00a0Apollo. When researchers measured the ages of impact-related rocks near those missions\u2019 landing sites, they found that a surprising number seemed to have been made around the same time. Scientists proposed the Late Heavy Bombardment to explain that pattern. Yet other measurements from both lunar missions and Earth rocks have since pointed at a different spread of impacts over time throughout the Solar System\u2019s history, leading some scientists to argue that there was no Late Heavy Bombardment at all.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Artemis IV should offer a more definitive test. Since it will be far away from the Imbrium basin event that affected the Apollo landing sites, the mission won\u2019t share the same biases. Artemis IV, Denevi says, has a good chance of clearing up this major chapter of Earth\u2019s history.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s almost the easiest big hypothesis to either topple or prove,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n